ANK Red Cat 2 Stripes
by LoveyouHateyou
Summary: After Riki's return to Iason, he is trying to come to terms with his situation. To his surprise, black and white begin to melt into shades of grey, but something else catches his attention - the past shared by Iason and Katze... and Raoul.
1. Chapter 1

**Fandom:** Ai No Kusabi  
**Disclaimer:** The characters in this story are not mine. This story is not for profit.  
**Rating:** M  
**Warnings:** Male/male affection  
**Characters:** Iason, Riki, Raoul, Katze  
**Summary:** After Riki's forced return to Iason, he has resigned himself to his fate - surprised to find that black and white begin to blur into shades of grey, and that things are not all they seem to be.

xxx

Riki doesn't know how long he has been hanging around, crouched against the glass door of the terrace outside Iason's study. Katze is hunched over Iason's computer, his pale face overcast by the pallid sheen of the screen. The apartment is blue with cigarette smoke, the ashtray overfull and spilling onto the wooden floor. Riki wonders how Katze gets away with it. The thought stings.

He can't see half of Katze's face that is turned away. Smooth red hair falls over his temples and hides the sharp lines of high cheekbones and a stubborn jaw. Riki knows that Katze's right ear will peek out and that he hates the scar that cuts from his left temple to his chin because it reminds him of things he'd rather forget.

_Torn apart and stitched back together like a ragdoll. Iason's idea of fun._

Riki realises that he's been gawking when Katze glances up and meets his eyes. Smoke curls from his nostrils as he stares at Riki. "What's up?" His tone is flat as always, his face blank.

Riki wonders whether Katze can make a grimace at all. "Nothing."

Katze raises his brows and leans back, his fingers stilling on the keyboard. "He's told you, hasn't he?"

Riki plays dumb. "What?"

Katze's eyes narrow. They're slanted, with dark golden irises. _The name suits him,_ thinks Riki as Katze gets to his feet in a smooth, easy motion. "What I was. What I am."

Shrugging, Riki shifts, ready to up and leave, or lash out. He doesn't like it when Iason goes all moody, but at least he has learned to read him. He can't read Katze at all.

The redhead steps out onto the terrace and leans on the bannister to glance down at the bands of light that mark the city road, flanked by soaring facades, gleaming like mirrors against a night-blue sky. He's taller than Riki, slim and sleek. It crosses Riki's mind that he never has any stubble on his chin, and that perhaps he can't grow a beard. _Whiskers maybe,_ Riki thinks as he is trying to imagine Katze with a tail, or maybe nine tails, and he nearly laughs.

Katze flicks the spent cigarette away and smirks at Riki. "Something funny?"

"I wish I had nine lives," says Riki.

No need to explain. Perhaps Katze can read minds. He laughs, tilting back his head. His throat is bobbing. Riki has never seen skin like his, incredibly white and almost flawless, and he thinks that an Elite, people like Iason that think they're perfect, would kill for this, and that maybe that's the reason for the scar. To add imperfection, blatant but not too ugly, only enough to make a point. Riki steps closer. Katze wears his old off-white coat that covers his shape and the handgun he carries in a shoulderholster. Even like this, Riki can feel his warmth. The redhead smells of cigarettes, cheap aftershave and a bit of dank clothes. It reminds Riki of home, of Guy and what will never be the same again.

"How do you cope with... being like that?" he asks before he can bite his tongue. The words pop out, and there's no way of taking them back or pretending they mean something else. Riki waits, ready for a fight, but Katze just stares into the light-littered darkness of the city without blinking.

"Some of my bits still work," he says blandly. "I once read that the body tries to compensate for lost limbs by transferring nerve signals elsewhere. I think it's like rewiring an android. For the rest I take stuff that keeps me... functional. " He sounds like a textbook, but the muscles on his scarred cheek bunch and his hand clenches. Emboldened, Riki decides to feed his reckless curiosity.

"He did it to punish you? Iason?"

"He didn't like the idea of me leaving."

"You tried to leave?"

Katze gives him a smile that's oddly off-center. "I didn't. But I might have. I'm nobody's slave."

"Could have fooled me," Riki mumbles, not sure how to deal with this rather ambiguous answer. He starts feeling raw and doesn't want to think about it. Katze runs his gaze over Riki from head to toe and back up, as if assessing a piece of kit... _or one of those brainless fuckdolls the rich like to keep,_ Riki thinks uncomfortably, _not to sleep with but to watch. Pets. Sounds better than slaves, animals. In the end it doesn't make a difference._ He tries to imagine Katze becoming one of them, but no, it doesn't figure.

"I know," Katze says calmly. "Iason likes to be certain. Independence and certainty don't go well together."

There's a trace of something Riki doesn't like in his tone. He feels as if Katze is talking down to him, like Iason.

"You're an idiot," Riki says, feeling defensive.

"Sure. But I'm my own idiot."

_Right,_ thinks Riki, _and what about me? Loser, that's what I am. And confused. And horny. Jesus..._

Katze steps closer. Stubborn, Riki stands his ground, and they end up pushing against each other.

"I can teach you." Katze's voice is low and cool, a tad hoarse, like scratchy wool.

Riki huffs. "You? How?"

The redhead ignores the insult. "There is pleasure in giving," he says quietly.

Riki laughs. "So you gave it all? Man, I'd rather not."

A wry smile passes over Katze's lips. "Well, it wasn't my first choice, but at the time it was my only option. At least I'm no hypocrite."

"Like who?"

"Guess."

Riki stares at him - a challenge, filled with resentment and, deep down, insecurity.

Katze holds his glare. He catches the blow before Riki's fist can smash into his face, and uses Riki's momentum to spin him into a headlock. Katze's lips touch Riki's ear. "Quit struggling or I'll break your arm."

Another tug, an angry snarl, before Riki realises he is stuck. Surprise washes through him - Katze doesn't look like the fighter type - and then a wave of resignation drowns out everything else, leaving him numb. He sags. Katze's grip loosens, changing into something different, almost an embrace, holding him close as they fold into a crouch on the cold tile floor. Katze takes the cigarette from Riki's lips and takes a deep pull, then leans over him to breathe a stream of smoke into his face. Riki turns away and closes his eyes.

"Funny," Katze says.

"What?" Riki mutters miserably.

"How you try to lie to yourself. You're quite good at it, but not good enough."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Katze's hand moves from Riki's neck to his shoulder and down to his chest, covering his nipple, fingertips over his heartbeat. "You want it. You're desperate to tell your lover you're done with him but you think you owe him. Do you need his approval so bad? Why don't you grow up, Riki? That bloke... what's his name?"

"Guy."

Katze's fingers wander lower, stroking Riki's flank. Riki kneels between Katze's legs, his back against Katze's chest, one hand on the redhead's knee, the other one clawing at the cold ground. He sucks in his lip as he feels Katze's lips slide to his neck, teeth scraping over the pulsing artery there.

"It isn't you he's after. It's his hurt pride he wants to mend."

"You... you got no clue," Riki grinds out.

"Don't you enjoy this?"

Riki bites his tongue firmly enough to draw blood. It tastes like sugared steel and makes him want to vomit.

"Iason... he likes a challenge, but he's never been like that before." Katze leans against Riki heavily. He is warm and firm, his touch without hesitation as he strokes lower. "Intrigued."

"I want him to leave me alone. I'm staying because he threatened my mates."

Katze snorts. "And of course, there's nowhere you could hide, right? How well do you know the slums?"

Feeling caught out, Riki keeps quiet.

"Come on," Katze says, rising and pulling him up too. "Finish that fag. We got time before Iason's due back. I'll show you a good one."

xxx


	2. Chapter 2

Katze undresses without hesitation or haste. He is smooth everywhere, barely a hair on his tall, wiry body. _He looks strong and tough,_ thinks Riki as he lets his gaze wander, _more like an Elite than a spoilt, soft pet-youth._ Everything about Katze is edgy - his mind, his body, the way he talks and works. _But then, he is not a youth. He is a man, even without-_

Riki shuts the thought down before it can take hold. Katze lights up and waits. Riki's gaze lingers on his mutilated privates but he doesn't feel appalled by the gnarled scars, thinly covered by reddish hair. He is curious how Katze's skin would feel, how he would react and what he could do.

It is easy. There is nothing submissive, no reluctance, no shame with the redhead. He is at ease with himself, and Riki feels a shade of jealousy dull the pleasure that washes through him as he is guided by touch and sound. He traces the marks on Katze's body - his face, his groin, the nub of scarred and sensitive flesh. The darker shade of healed skin where the tracer bracelet used to be, rubbing his wrist raw. The traces of lashes on his stomach, his back, his buttocks and the back of his legs. Riki winces as he runs his fingers over the knotty skin. The scars make Katze's body older than his face, but they are also enticing and extravagant. Riki understands enough of Iason's shaded thoughts to see them for what they are - a pattern of desire, helpless and burning with violent frustration.

It makes Riki feel hot and nervy. Surprised, he finds that Katze's confidence makes it unimportant how he does what makes Riki clutch and bite the pillow while Katze's body settles heavily against Riki's back. They find a rhythm, and it's over in a blast of white-hot heat before Riki can catch his breath.

"How," he yaps, "how can you still..."

Katze rolls off him and grabs his fags to light up. He laughs. "Fingers. And basic biology. My insides works just fine. Can't give you much, but hey..."

Riki rolls over, props himself up on one elbow and stares at him starkly. "Let me do you."

Katze seems startled, his eyes narrowing. "Look-"

Riki swoops down on him, pins his hips to the mattress with both hands, and does what he wanted to do since they started getting naked. _No,_ he thinks fuzzily, _actually much longer than that..._

Katze plops back and yelps, squirming against Riki. Riki, spent but not finished, uses his mouth and hands to map out the sensitive places on Katze's body. There are so many that the only way to touch them all is to press himself down on the redhead and wrap him into a crushing embrace. Katze's cigarette drops onto the floor. He kisses with a hunger that makes Riki dizzy and ravenous and when Katze grunts at him to 'do it already', Riki doesn't spare it a second thought. Or perhaps there is one - the redhead has come prepared, and when Riki realises this, he meets a knowing grin and a sly, somewhat veiled gaze.

"Amateurs," Katze rasps quietly. "You gotta be ready 'cos you never know what they're gonna do."

Riki hunkers down until he's nose to nose with the redhead and those golden irises melt into one before his gaze. "Amateurs, huh? You want me to tell you or show you?"

Katze meets him hard and unyielding. "Show... me..."

"Now I know," Riki gasps, moving forcefully.

"Hah! Ouch, dammit, be careful! What?"

"Why he chopped them off." Riki closes Katze's mouth with a biting kiss and swallows the venomous comeback. He gropes between them and touches where he wants to. Katze rears and groans loudly, his eyes closing, his arms trembling as he reaches up to grip the bedposts, the tendons on his arms standing out like cords. He almost sobs with abandon. "Oh... Jesus..."

"He wanted... to keep you all... to himself," Riki bites out, his body wracked by long, quaking waves. Done, he sags immediately and lets himself slump over Katze's prone form.

There is silence that melts into stillness when they manage to catch their breath and the pounding of their blood subsides.

"Iason's gonna have my balls too if he gets wind of this," Riki mumbles as he feels himself cool down.

Katze relaxes. "He might," he says. "Or he might try to kill you."

"And you?"

"Not me. He needs me."

"Wow, thanks for cheering me up, buddy."

"Anytime. I need to go and wash."

"Stay." Riki doesn't ask what irks him - _You always turn up here like that?_

Katze nudges him. "Move. I need to finish off."

"Hm?"

"What you started." Katze sounds amused and a bit annoyed.

"Again?"

"I take longer. Starting and finishing. Sometimes that means I get a bonus round."

"Nice way of putting it." Riki rolls off Katze and looks at him sideways. "That was good, you know."

The redhead sits up, his hands idle between his knees. "You're welcome."

Riki reaches out to touch him, lightly stroking his arm. "What do you feel... I mean-"

"For Iason?" Katze sounds calm but Riki can sense an undercurrent in his tone. "Anger. Attraction." A small break, then, "Sometimes more than anger."

"Why don't you leave?"

"I can't."

"Bullshit."

"I'd lose too much. Years of work. Money. My reputation. His backing. It has helped, you know. I'd be back in the gutter. That puts things into perspective."

"You'd be free."

Katze snorts. "Freedom is overrated. I run a business. I want my books balanced, and right now they are."

"You love him."

"You're an idiot."

"He set you up in business."

"Not quite."

"Oh?"

Katze gets up and goes to wash. Riki watches him move, with a kind of easy power that he envies. It also reminds him uncomfortably of Iason. When Katze returns, he brings two mugs of black coffee and a fresh packet of fags. He lights two and gives one to Riki.

"Iason," Katze says as he rolls back onto the bed and shuffles up against the headboard, "likes that version of events. His idea of them. But he only caught me after I'd hacked into his system."

"But..." Riki trails off, thinking. He shakes his head. "It doesn't make sense."

"He wanted to kill me." Katze smiles vaguely. "But I had information he needed. The key to the riddle. Virtually."

"Riddle?"

"Not everyone likes Iason. Some people aren't shy when it comes to their methods, when they're dealing with this kind of... issue. I'd broken a few access codes and knew who was involved. I left little trips and tracers to track what they were doing, and I wouldn't tell him where. I kept the encryption code to myself. I didn't think it would really stop him, but it was worth a toss. Then I realised that he didn't want anyone else involved, not even Raoul. I think we both saw our chance. That's why he didn't have my neck."

"You made a deal?"

"In a way. He helped me starting up my business. I gave up information at a rate that allowed me to firm up my position. It was enough to wipe out the plot against him and Jupiter at the time, and now I'm earning good money for him. He's smart enough to seize his opportunities."

"He isn't like that," Riki mutters.

Katze closes his eyes and smokes in silence.

xxx


	3. Chapter 3

The computer bleeps. Katze goes to check his messages. When he returns to Riki, he is dressed. "Work for you," he says, tossing the key to one of their warehouses at Riki. Still bathing in the afterglow, Riki is too lazy to catch it. Katze reaches for the gun and throws it onto the bed. It lands between Riki's legs, close to his middle. He winces and grabs the weapon.

"What am I supposed to do with this?"

"You might need it for the next job I'm giving you. I can't go with you this time."

"Why?"

"I have other things to do. Stuff that can't wait or we'll lose a lot of money and business backing."

When Riki is gone, Katze opens the glassdoor to the terrace. He has powered the computer down. He is in no hurry, and he doesn't turn when the entrance door to the apartment opens with a soft hiss.

xxx

"You should have turned the transmitter off." Iason's low, cool voice touches the redhead, and he turns.

"You saw?" Katze smirks, unsurprised.

Iason stares at him blankly. "It's more... interesting than a pet show."

"Sure. I hope you had a good time."

Iason reaches out.

Katze meets his eyes with a glare. "Don't touch me."

Iason's face reddens. "Don't talk to me like that!"

"Why not?"

"I could have your mind wiped."

"I have a beautiful mind," Katze says, irony lacing his tone. "Wasn't that what you said? You told me that you like beautiful things."

Iason leans against the glass wall. "Yes," he agrees quietly. "I meant it."

"Well, if that's all..." Katze tries to get past him, but Iason blocks his way.

"You refused me... you still do. Why?"

"Because I can. Not even you can have everything."

"How stupid."

"We all have our ticks."

Iason's brows draw into a scowl. "Riki loves me."

"Yes, I think he does." There's something close to pity in Katze's tone, laced with anger and something else that prompts Iason to try again.

"But you, after all I did-"

"You crippled me. What do you expect? Gratitude?"

For a moment, they try to stare each other down, and then Iason shakes his head. "Back then... I didn't know it could be... different. It was the only way I could imagine to keep you."

"Keep. Like a dog." Katze shrugs. "I'm fine without a leash. And now you have Riki."

"It wasn't about the information you wouldn't give me. I could have found it."

Katze stays silent.

Iason leans in, just a little, without trying to touch him again. "You know that, don't you?" he murmurs, breathing in the aroma of Katze's skin.

"Yes," comes the answer, so quiet Iason nearly misses it.

For a moment, the silence between them is overwhelming before Katze draws a slow breath. "You could let me go." In spite of himself, there's desperation in his voice.

"Freedom," Iason says softly, "it's overrated, is it not?"

"I was trying to comfort him. You could try how it feels."

"What?"

"Someone staying with you because they want to."

"I can't." Iason's answer is prompt and firm. Non negotiable. His lips are almost touching Katze's hair as he breathes the redhead's scent, the mix of spice and tobacco, sweat and se? that he finds insanely attractive. It is a wild smell, different from anything the refined world of the Elite can offer. "You know I can't."

"You're a coward," Katze spits. "Why don't you even consider-" He breaks off, shocked by what he was about to offer.

Iason waits, a heartbeat, two, before drawing a tight breath. "I can't risk it. What if you run?"

"Where the hell would I go?"

"Where do you go whenever you leave this place?"

"You have the tracer. If you're so desperate-"

"Isn't it enough that I'm not using it anymore?"

"Take the damn thing off me! Make me whole again! I hate being a cripple!"

Another silence, thick and heavy, before Iason sways back, making room for the redhead. Katze pushes past him and leaves without looking back.

xxx


	4. Chapter 4

Sullenly, Riki stares into the darkness of Iason's bedroom. He wants to smoke, but getting up would wake Iason who had been moody and demanding that evening. _As if making a point,_ thinks Riki, _but what the hell was that good for? It's not like I'd be able to forget my place in this fucked-up world. Pet, my ass. If he'd not rub it in all the time, I could like this. And what was this thing with Katze? A spat, about what?_

He feels a stirring as he recalls sleeping with the redhead, images drifting through his mind that make him curious and restless.

"Go smoke already," Iason's deep voice disturbs the silence. He sounds tense.

"I want to go home," Riki says without thinking.

"What is it with you... people?" Iason rises abruptly. In the faint light that shimmers through the blinds axross the panorama window, Riki can see the outline of his naked body. "Haven't you settled in yet? Why do you want to roll in dirt if you can be here, with me?"

"Didn't Katze tell you?"

Iason's backhand is swift and ruthless, throwing Riki back onto the bed. He closes his eyes and licks the blood from his split upper lip. A hearbeat later Iason is over him, kissing it off.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs, not sounding sorry at all. Even the word sounds odd with him. "Riki... why do you provoke me like this?"

"I thought you liked that," Riki slurs. "All that hurt-comfort shit."

"You deserved it." Iason lies down beside him and drags the blanket up to their shoulders. "How would you like to carry on working with Katze?"

Riki holds his breath.

"He is beautiful, is he not?" Iason carries on, slowly stroking Riki's chest. "Beautiful and bright and without respect for anything or anyone."

_And you didn't manage to teach him,_ Riki thinks, but this time he keeps his silence. Iason tweaks his nipple, watching goosebumps rise on Riki's skin.

"He also is in the past."

Riki closes his eyes. "None of my business."

"I'm alone." Iason's voice hums against Riki's temple in a way that makes him hate and love, loathe and desire, until he thinks he is going crazy. Iason's arm across his chest keeps him pinned to the mattress.

"What about your mate Raoul?" Riki bites out.

"Raoul tells me to throw you out."

"Good tip."

Iason's kiss is warm and firm, laced with longing. Riki shivers.

"He is worried that I might fall foul of Jupiter."

"Yeah," Riki grunts, slightly breathless when he feels Iason's hand crawl between his legs. "She's a bitch."

"She's my mother."

"Tough love."

"There are other ways to solve this problem."

Riki yelps when Iason's fingers clench around his privates. "You're sick, you know!"

"And you're insolent, like Katze," Iason shoots back, squeezing harder. Riki squirms and bites his lips in agony. Iason keeps kissing, the gentleness of it in harsh contrast with his cruel grip around Riki's jewels.

"Okay, okay," Riki hisses, breathless with pain, "I get it, I swear. Please, Iason, you're gonna rip them off if you- ah..."

Iason lets go and buries him in a crushing hug.

"I like it when you beg," he rasps, his face buried in Riki's hair. "Now I want you to beg me to-"

"Please," yaps Riki, "please do it already."

xxx

"You're late." Katze doesn't pause hammering onto the keyboard of his computer. A cigarette is dangling from the corner of his mouth, and the murky darkness of his room is thick with smoke.

Riki slings his holdall onto the bed pushed against the wall behind Katze's chair. The bed is wide for a single and narrow for a double. It has a creaking metal frame and dank, crumpled linens. "I got here as soon as I could," Riki grouches. "And I've had it. Riki go, Riki jump, Riki fetch - did you cook this up with him? Or is this Iason's idea of letting me run on a long leash?"

"He came up with it first, but it's okay. You can make yourself useful." Katze hits a button; the screensaver pops up - a splash of garish red that spreads on the screen as if soaking into fabric, until the entire screen is glowing deep red. It drains the colour from Katze's hair and gives his pale skin an unhealthy hue. His lids are heavy but his eyes gleam at Riki who isn't fooled by Katze's sleepy expression. "You don't look so well," the redhead says, appraising a few new bruises on Riki's neck and jaw.

"So what? Want details?"

Katze gives him a thin smile. "No." He grabs a bunch of keys from his desk and tosses them at Riki who is quick enough to catch them. "Let's go. I'll show you a few places... well, in a new light."

Katze's den is above a garage. In the garage is a shiny new, brand-red roadster. Katze, in his old coat, with a bulge where he carries his gun, slides into the passenger seat. Riki, undecided, hangs in over the driver's door to stroke the deep red leather that lines the interior of the car. It feels great, he thinks dizzily, like Katze.

"What are you waiting for?" the redhead prompts, amusement glittering in his eyes.

Riki climbs in without a word. He caresses the dashboard with its array of shiny clocks and electronic displays, and finally pushes the ignition key into its slot on the column of the steering wheel. He draws a deep breath and listens to the engine powering up before he carefully maneuvres the car through the narrow rollgate into the street

Then he lets rip.

xxx

Riki has gone to take the car to a service garage, leaving Katze at Iason's apartment. To sort out some financials, Katze told him. Riki doesn't do book-keeping and is glad he can keep busy elsewhere.

Katze lights a cigarette as he steps to Iason's big glass desk. "You wanted me for what?"

Iason glances up from his computer and meets Katze's gaze. Between them, a moment of silence deepens into bottomless darkness.

"Riki..."

"He had a great time last night," says Katze. "I've had better minders, but he's doing fine for an amateur. He'll need to carry if you want him to keep this job. I've purchased something suitable, unregistered, quiet, and easy to use. He'll be okay." He pulls a small wallet from a pocket and lays it onto the glass table. "The holodisk you asked for. I've included the latest business accounts, along with a few bonus files on some of our competitors. You decide what to do with them."

Iason's eyebrows rise. "Bonus files?"

The redhead smiles faintly. "I was feeling generous."

Iason gets up and walks around the desk until they are almost nose to nose, feeling each other's warmth and tension. "You insolent-"

"Come off it," Katze cuts in, smoke curling from his nostrils. "Take it as a thankyou."

"For old time's sake? Or for what are you doing with Riki?"

"Keep guessing." Katze stares into Iason's eyes, and for a moment, the world stops spinning. He breaks away with difficulty. "I have to go."

"I want you to stay tonight." A lashing of urgency makes Iason's voice rough.

Katze squashes the fag out in the ashtray Iason keeps on the desk and stuffs his hands into his coat pockets. "I have plans."

"I checked your commitment schedule."

Katze pulls up his shoulders, a small, defensive gesture even though his expression stays blank. "Okay, so there's no business tonight. I still-"

"I _need_ you to stay," Iason breaks in. His tone is level again, but his gaze is intense. "I ordered wine."

"And you asked me to send Riki away on business. How convenient," Katze retorts.

"It's different." Iason raises his hand as if to touch the redhead but lets it drop at the last moment, gripping the holodisk instead. "Not what you think."

"And what would we do all night?"

Iason turns his back and folds his arms, turning the disk between his fingers as he steps to the panorama window. "Watch the city," he murmurs, glancing into the glittering darkness beyond the thick panes. "Play games... anything. Whatever you like. You used to enjoy going to the shows..."

"I want to smoke and get pissed. I don't think that's on the cards for you."

"I don't like it when you push me," Iason snaps, suddenly rattled. "And don't make me beg. I could order you. I don't. I'm asking."

"You couldn't tell the difference if it bit you on the ass."

The impact of Iason's gloved fist makes the glass vibrate. "Do you want me to hit you?" he grinds out at Katze's reflection in the window.

Katze settles on the edge of Iason's desk. "You enjoyed it before," he replies quietly, a strange softness in his tone.

Iason swallows hard. "You..."

"Cripple," Katze supplies dryly. "You could have made up your mind back then. It's all over now."

There is a small pause, so tense it tears at both of them, and then Iason turns back to face the redhead. "I could still have you."

Katze holds his glare. "Then get it over with, and never mind me."

There is a flicker in Iason's eyes, something close to pain, before he breaks away to touch the panel of the intercom on his desk. "The wine," he barks. "Now."

xxx


	5. Chapter 5

"I got your message. So I went out last night, to one of the races. Cool stuff." Riki lights up and waits until Katze has settled before tearing the red sportster out into the thick morning traffic. Katze looks tired, deep shadows around his eyes, his lips chapped and dry. He leans over to take the fag from Riki's lisp and smokes it in long, hungry pulls.

"I hope you didn't lose too much of my money," he says then, turning away to glance out of the window.

"I won. You still love him," Riki replies, almost offhandedly.

There is a long silence, before Katze leans back in his seat and closes his eyes. "There's roadworks ahead. Better take the diversion."

"I want to go home," Riki says, staring ahead and steering the car without hesitation, fluid, with the same deft instincts that let him win races on his bike.

"I never did," Katze rasps. Riki knows it's not about him.

"You know, you're a shitty liar. Go practice with a mirror or something."

"Look, quit giving me grief now. I wanna go home too. And sleep, like a week. Or not wake up at all. I don't need you trying to dig up old stuff that's nothing to do with you."

"Oh, hit a nerve then, did I?"

"Shut it, Riki. Really."

"Did he fuck you?"

"No. Happy?"

Riki clenches his jaw. "You weren't always his..."

"Furniture. Piece of kit. Houseboy, dog. Just say it, I've heard worse."

"Sure thing." Katze has just confirmed what Riki has been suspecting for some time. "You know what? I think he cut you after he caught you breaking into his files."

"Look, when I applied for a job with an Elite, I knew what the conditions were."

"Oh yeah? And you were how old? You don't look like a slumkid. You ever tried to find out who your parents were?"

"I don't know them."

"It's not that hard, is it? What with Raoul's DNA library-"

"That's enough." This time, Katze's tone is cold. It reminds Riki of Iason in one of his moods. It's the line he's learned to recognise - don't cross, or you'll get hurt, or others that you care for might end up paying the price. The redhead's face is like a mask, and Riki realises that he's been privileged to get this close to Katze before the blinds slammed down. Yet even now there's a gulf between them that he feels unable to bridge, and it's not the way he'd like it to be.

For a while they travel in silence, Riki slicing through the traffic with ease. He concentrates on the pleasure of driving such a car and feels the dull ache in his chest subside as everything beyond the power of speed fades away.

"Iason wanted me for company," Katze says quietly into the space between them. "He's always been wilful like that. I guess he's what the Elite would call a rebel. Perhaps that's why he's big mama's favourite - he's her worry child. Raoul... he never liked the idea but Iason had his way and brought me to his place. You're right. Back then, I was whole and sane." A wry smile passes over his lips. The cigarette is sprinkling ash over his chest. He doesn't seem to care. "I was never sure what exactly he was after. We played games. Cards, riddles, stuff on the computer. I've been messing around with computers since I got my first one from the scrapyard. Then Iason let me use the equipment in his office to see what I could do. That was like putting you on a racing bike. He tried to teach me, but he couldn't."

"Huh?" Riki says, confused and getting fidgety again as he tries to make sense of what he hears. Something nags him but every time he thinks he can grab it, it slips from his mind again, smoothed away by Katze's cool, level voice.

"I knew more than his IT people. And I found out a few things I shouldn't have seen. I think it surprised him, but he started to involve me in his work. And then I got carried away, and that was the end of it."

_There,_ thinks Riki, that's it. _Iason was in love, and then he gave in to pressure from Jupiter and Mr Perfect Raoul and who knows what. A business deal... or maybe more than that._

"He didn't have many options," Katze says blandly. "He could have killed me. Or sold my contract to... someone else. Raoul had a few ideas." He leans forward and lets his head loll, clasping his temples in a tight, pained gesture. For a moment, Riki thinks he's going to throw up, but then Katze straightens and sags back into the seat. The wind tosses his hair and bares the scar that disfigures him. Unthinkingly Riki reaches out to touch it, surprised that Katze lets him. It's a gash that splits his face from temple to jaw, the flesh gnarled like a brand mark.

"Raoul's ideas... That one of them?"

"No. That's Iason's kind of joke."

xxx

Iason stands by the glasswall that offers a sweeping view of the city. On the glass table, an almost empty bottle and a glass amid rings of dried, rusty red wine. A wide metal band lies loosely around the neck of the bottle. In his hand Iason cradles another long-stemmed glass, half full, catching the last light of the setting sun. Deep red reflections dance on his white glove as he slowly swirls the wine. He is watching the sky burst into flames and dissolve into a sea of fire, dusk seeping in from above, and then darkness in bruised purple shades. A lone star blinks at the centre of the night, small against the rising glow of the awakening city.

Iason returns to his desk. The room is bathed in the vague light from the panorama wall. Iason touches the screen of his computer, and after a few soft bleeps and changing frames, the cuff on the bottle displays a string of holographic symbols. Iason picks the band up and turns it, deeply in thought, studying the inscription.

"Give me the parameters," he says.

A datasheet opens on the screen. In the top left corner, it shows Katze's image. It is the picture of a much younger man, without a scar, the hint of a smile on his lips that doesn't reach his eyes. Iason looks at the image for a long time, in silence, turning the metal cuff between his fingers. Then he reaches for his glass and finishes his drink.

"I renounce my rights to this property," he says at last, his voice cool and firm. "This contract is terminated. Proceed."

"Contract terminated," the computer confirms in a disembodied voice. The symbols on the cuff fade until it is nothing but a matt band of grey metal. Iason sets it onto the glass table.

"Move the file to my secure archive."

"Caution. This is a property profile. It is recommended to delete terminated property profiles. Do you wish to delete this terminated property profile?"

"No. Transfer it to my secure archive. Proceed."

"Profile transferred at user's request. Risk flag added."

"Retain all access rights for this profile."

"Caution," the indifferent voice of the machine replies, "retaining access rights for this profile may compromise security. It is recommended to cancel access rights. Retaining access rights will trigger a security assessment for this profile above authoriser level. You will not be able to access this profile for editing until the assessment is complete. Do you wish to cancel access rights?"

"No. Retain access rights. Proceed."

"Access rights retained at user's request. High-level security assessment triggered. Profile locked for user editing."

"Close this file."

The datasheet collapses.

"Sleep," Iason orders and watches the screen fade from pale blue to black. He pours the rest of the wine into his glass and drinks deeply. He doesn't need to wait for long before Raoul's image appears on the small screen of the intercom.

"Iason, what's going on? I have an alert on my controller unit."

"Yes. Let me explain."

xxx


	6. Chapter 6

Raoul shakes his beautiful head. Everything about him is measured, composed. _Perfect, _thinks Iason as he watches his friend settle in the armchair by his desk. _And stale. Like looking into a mirror and pleasuring yourself._

"You are making a mistake," Raoul says, a hint of concern in his tone. His voice is quiet and gentle, not matching his eyes with their cool, appraising gaze. "When will you learn, Iason? Our mother has been patient with you but nobody stands quite above her laws."

"If it is of any comfort to you, I won't resent you for doing your duty."

"This is not funny."

"Perhaps we need to learn to see the irony in a situation."

"Who told you that? Katze?"

"And from Riki I heard that we should take the rough with the smooth."

Raoul draws a deep breath in his grave, somewhat dramatic manner. "You have a regrettable preference for cheap company."

"I find it refreshing."

Raoul looks hurt for a moment, until Iason reaches across the desk and touches his hand.

"Different," Iason says, "in ways that don't compare."

Raoul relaxes, a smile passing over his lips. "I am not sure I understand you, but I wish you would be more careful with your choices."

"Will you complete the security assessment?"

A frown darkens Raoul's even features. "I do not agree, you know that."

Iason sits back in his chair. "What do you want me to do?"

"Let me take him away. In fact, I can find uses for both of them that will more than fill their remaining lifespans. You can find someone else to run your business deals. Jupiter does not bear any grudges. Once this issue is settled, all will be well again."

Iason picks up the metal cuff, sets it onto its edge and starts spinning it slowly. It rings softly on the polished glass of the desk.

Raoul watches him carefully. "You do not agree?"

"You know my answer."

"Then let me remind you," Raoul says quietly, "that it won't matter now. I am asking you for our friendship's sake. To all intents and purposes, Katze now is an alien here. You freed him. Did you tell him? No?"

"It's not good to know each other too well, is it now?" Iason retorts, barely above his breath.

"This is the reason why Jupiter tells us not to-"

"I do not need a lecture, my friend," Iason cuts in. "I need your approval on the security check." He does not raise his voice, but the room seems to chill by several degrees. For a split second, Raoul's even features show emotion - he is taken aback, scandalised perhaps, and deeply disappointed - before they slip back into their familiar smooth set.

"I will give it to you. But you may wish to recall that what we want is not always what we need, and sometimes we are the last ones to know ourselves. This is why we should trust our mother. Have we not done well under her guidance? What makes you so... restless?"

Iason does not reply. He runs his fingers over the grey metal band that now is nothing else, all tracking data deleted, all functions - punishing or pleasurable - disabled. He feels something akin to grief well through him, like every time he lets himself sink into thinking about this. A loss he does not quite comprehend, try as he might, the hurt at being refused for reasons beyond his grasp. It _should be a privilege, _he muses, _to be chosen by an Elite. A stroke of incredible luck to be dragged out of those filthy quarters to live with one of us. Where procreation is unimportant, its activities become meaningless, so why cling on to their functions? I apologised. An Elite apologised to a... no, it shouldn't matter._

"Iason?"

He glances up, meeting Raoul's clear green gaze.

"My friend," Iason replies, his voice a soft rasp filled with affection, unveiled and firm. It makes Raoul flinch, like a hot wave he wants to drown in but is afraid to touch.

_This, _he thinks, _is why we mustn't get involved. Mother knows how these things work. She wants to spare us this agony that can only lead to disorder. The chaos in the slums, it all stems from this source. Unchecked emotions, greed, desire, loss and envy. They veil our reason and dull our mind. _

He rises quickly, as if afraid of getting burned. "I will approve the check. But I want you to think about my offer. It will solve your issues and all will be forgotten."

_It won't solve anything, _Iason thinks as the door slides shut behind Raoul. _And nothing that happened can be forgotten. This mix of revulsion and attraction, pain and pleasure. Watching a performance is nothing like acting it out yourself... as long as you are willing to pay the price. Am I? What is the price? And is it mine to pay? _

It was not Jupiter that filled his mind.

xxx

Katze stands on the far side of Iason's desk. They're through with their business talk, but Iason has not dismissed him. Katze waits in silence.

Iason draws a slow breath. "I don't know how to start. The best way, perhaps, is to carry on where we left."

_No need for an introduction,_ it drifts through Katze's mind, _don't we both know it? We spent much time together. Time to get to know each other rather well._

"I've been selfish," Iason says, his tone calm, his eyes not. "I wanted to keep you close. I didn't want to let you go, and I didn't want you to think of being... happier elsewhere. With someone else."

"Then make it right," Katze bites out. "Make me whole again. Let me go."

Iason bites his lip. "The technology isn't ready yet. You know that."

"I'm okay as a lab bunny for Raoul."

"I'm not okay with that."

"This isn't..." Katze meets Iason's blue gaze for a second, then shakes his head. "Wrong. This is all about you. Should have known. Anyway, what would happen to me without an owner? I'd be dead meat."

Iason turns to look out of the window. "I've always wanted to leave this place, at least for a while. But I can't. I have responsibilities I can't just shake off like an old coat."

"Sure."

"And I still don't want you to leave me."

"You have Riki."

"A second chance," Iason murmurs. He doesn't sound happy.

"Good luck. I hope he's smart and doesn't put any stock in your promises."

Iason is silent, like frozen, as he stares outside unblinkingly.

"Let me go," Katze says to his broad back. "It doesn't matter what Raoul says. I can fend for myself. Please, for all that was. At least let me go now." He steps closer, hope and despair and everything else he feels for Iason cresting in a wild, blinding wave, making him forget himself for a mad, excruciating second. He reaches out unthinkingly, bridging the space between them, his gloved fingers touching Iason's arm.

Breaking the boundary that for an unbearable eternity he's been so careful to keep.

Iason whips around and buries him in an embrace that crushes the breath out of both of them. "Forgive me," he rasps, his voice heavy and brittle.

Katze is rigid against him, his hands clutching Iason's upper arms, pushing against him. "You promised you'd not cripple me. You said that there'd be no more secret visits. I came with you because you told me I'd be safe. We could have left back then. It's all over now. Too late for everything."

"Forgive me," Iason repeats, his lips pressing against Katze's scar. "You have to forgive me."

"I tried. I'm not great enough."

Iason holds on for a few heartbeats, as if hoping something might happen that changes everything, wipes out the past, lets them start again, but Katze stays like this, unmoving, unyielding, and Iason lets go of him at last.

"Can I go now?" Katze asks, without meeting his eyes.

"Yes," comes Iason's soft reply, "you may leave now."

Katze hesitates, the duplicity of Iason's words seeping into his mind, but then he strides out of the room without looking back. He's lit up and half-smoked his first cigarette before the lift lets him out at the underground garage where his car is parked, and he's lighting another one on the glowing butt before he puts the key in the ignition.

xxx

Katze leans against the door of his den and lets his head thud back. The cigarette trembles between his lips, and his throat bobs as he swallows. He is blinking but the burning in his eyes won't go away. Roughly, he scrubs at them, but it's useless. The cigarette drops and he buries his face in his hands.

"Hey."

Katze jumps. He whips his handgun from its shoulderholster and takes aim, trusting the laser to guide the bullet. Only then does he see Riki's shape, black against the drawn blinds, and slouching on a chair by the window.

"Jesus, you want to get yourself killed or what?" Katze snarls, willing his fingers to release the trigger of the gun.

Riki raises his hands. "Can I have that smoke? I've run out."

Without a word, Katze kicks the glowing butt across, and Riki picks it up to smoke it down to the filter in hungry pulls.

The redhead lets himself fall on the bed and sprawls out, closing his eyes. A moment later, the mattress dips as Riki joins him.

"I was right. You still love him."

Katze grunts. "Leave it."

"I'm okay with that, you know."

"You got no clue."

"Give me some credit, will you?" Riki props himself up on one elbow and stares at Katze who doesn't move. Riki leans down and licks one eyelid, then the other. "Salty," he says quietly. "And bitter."

"I'm trying... I'm trying to tell myself there was no other way," Katze answers, his tone distant. "That Jupiter would have me killed, or made me in one of Raoul's... toys. But there's reason, and there's... what I feel. I can't help it."

"Try happy pills."

Katze growls. "They don't work."

"Then," Riki lowers himself, putting his weight on Katze's chest, "let me try something else."

There is no fire between them this time. Things happen because that's how their bodies respond, and at the end, Riki feels more exhausted from pretending than from spending himself. Katze doesn't even make the effort to put on a show. When they're through, he lights a cigarette and runs his hand through Riki's hair, just once.

"I need to be on my own now."

And Riki goes to what he's come to accept as home. The only place where, he thinks, he's welcome at this time, and he wonders whether Iason will be waiting.

xxx


	7. Chapter 7

Iason's place is empty when Riki gets back. There's a jug of water and a glass tumbler on the bedside table. Riki goes to shower and rolls onto the bed, feeling relaxed and lazy. Suddenly the light seems to dim even though he hasn't touched the switch. He wonders vaguely what kind of shitty dream this is, and then he sees Iason's silhouette, dark against the vague light from the panorama window, his hair shimmering ghostly white.

"Riki."

Iason's voice hums through Riki, stirring the familiar mix of dread and anticipation, hate and lust, and beyond that, unwanted and untold, longing and desire. The attraction of the forbidden, powerful and unchecked. The sense of danger and loss, hovering close. The terror that his fate might be no better than that of others before him, but then, what was he? Different, that was the tempting answer.

_Like Katze._

There's little comfort in this for Riki.

Iason steps into the room, something long and sleek in his hand. He sits on the edge of the mattress that dips under his muscular weight. "I am glad you are home," he says.

Riki detects the tension in his tone, slight as it is. He has become attuned to the barely-there nuances, the shades in Iason's expression, his voice, the way he moves. He has also learned to avoid or to play them, from being sly to blunt.

"What do you want with that?" He nods at the thing Iason lays on the pillow by Riki's head. A tight coil of black rope, made of shiny silk.

"It is a gift. I would like you to wear it. Any way you like."

Riki doesn't touch it. For a sickening moment, panic blasts through him when he thinks of the threats and rumours about what happens to discarded toys. He props himself up on his elbow. "Iason, I-"

Iason presses him back and leans down to kiss him deeply, tasting, feeling, letting himself be overwhelmed by his senses. Riki wraps his arm around Iason's shoulders, his fingers combing through that incredibly long, smooth hair.

Iason catches his other wrist in a loop of black silk. Riki rears up against him, eyes closing as he lets Iason's arms cage him.

"Beautiful." Iason's voice drifts into Riki's mind, and angry gratitude sears through him, relief that this is one of Iason's moods, and that perhaps no harm will come from it.

"Perhaps there is pleasure in watching rather than doing," Iason murmurs, as if talking to himself, "but I disagree..."

Touch, heat, burning. Iason's hands scraping up Riki's back make him wince and pull back, wanting less, longing for more. The sensation of melting into Iason, of losing himself in Iason's body and mind so completely as if he'd never had one of his own. The pleasure of yielding and not feeling guilty because he has no choice now, no freedom and no responsibility. Iason isn't gentle but the brutal swiftness of his motions contrasts sharply with the tenderness of his lips on Riki's skin. He is kissing everywhere he can reach until nothing hurts beyond the veil of desire that shrouds Riki's sanity.

And when he comes round at last, slick with sweat and what they've just done, the cord is wrapped around his wrists, Iason's body is covering his like a shield, solid and dependable, and a coil of black silk lies tightly around Iason's neck.

"Mine," Iason murmurs, his face buried in Riki's hair.

And Riki, barely able to breathe under his weight, thinks, _I want him less. I win._

xxx

Katze, sitting on the edge of Iason's desk, closes his fingers around the grey metal cuff.

"I see," he says. His tone is quiet and brittle, and he keeps his eyes downcast, avoiding Iason's gaze. "Well, I suppose I should say thank you."

Iason, a glass of wine in his hand, stands by the panorama window, his back to the city. "Perhaps you will find an... appropriate way."

Katze huffs, a smirk slipping over his face. "Trust you to get the point across. Don't you ever give up?"

"I find that difficult." Iason steps closer and sets the glass on the table.

Katze glances up at him, and for a moment they look at each other in silence. "You know, there was a time when I'd done anything for you," he says at last, slipping the band into his pocket.

"And now?" Iason replies, bending to touch his lips to Katze's hair.

The redhead doesn't flinch but leans his brow against Iason's stomach. "It's different. Everything's different. All those years, I thought at least it made some sort of sense. The things you've done to me. Your broken promises."

"Now even this is gone?"

"You sound almost human," Katze jokes. He sounds tired and does not try to hide his bitterness.

"If you'd not pushed me away..."

"And be like one of your... of those toys you like to watch?" Katze snorts. "Perhaps we've just grown tired of each other. Like an old couple."

Iason puts his hands on Katze's wrists. Cautious, testing. Sliding them up slowly to his upper arms. "You'll never be like them," he murmurs, drinking in the aroma of Katze's hair. "Why punish yourself like that? Why chose to break if you could bend, just a little? Your pride, it's in the way. Inappropriate. I am not your enemy. I know you. I know what you like, what you miss. I can take care of you."

"Yes," Katze says, barely above his breath. "But we all change. Me, Riki, Guy, the rest of us. We're not like you. We live, we fight, we age, we die. I'm all grown up now."

"You're not like them," Iason says, ignoring the rest. "You know that. I could reactivate your profile. Or I could apply for you to become a citizen. You could grow your hair, we could have that scar removed..." He stoops lower, his lips touching Katze's temple, the rim of his ear, his cheek, the strip of ravaged skin. "I didn't know what was happening back then."

"And now? C'mon, don't make me cry."

"I could if I wanted to."

_And this, _thinks Katze, _is what you'll never get._

"I can't stay here now," he says. "Raoul won't be pleased at me corrupting you like this. He likes practical measures, and I'd prefer to get out of his way. And don't worry, I can take care of myself."

"You don't trust me."

Katze pulls back and looks into Iason's eyes, deep gold meeting ice blue. "No," he says quietly, "I don't."

xxx

In the great hall where Jupiter resides, Raoul sits in the chair opposite the computer. He looks oddly small.

"What happened, Mother?" he asks, his voice a hushed murmur in the wide room.

_We took a risk, _the answer whispers in his mind, the words mingling with an undercurrent of sadness so strong it makes him wince. _We allowed feelings. _

"But why? Why if everything was working so perfectly?"

_Because perfection means stagnation._

"Destroying the balance... it happened before."

_And whilst there is imperfection, it will happen again. There needs to be destruction to make room for new growth._

"But... it didn't work," he murmurs. "What else should there be? What should we grow?"

_With great suffering come great deeds._

"I don't understand," Raoul says, his unease sharpening until it becomes something else, much heavier, much sharper, that makes his mouth go dry and his throat tighten. "Haven't we always done what was required of us?"

But this time, there is only silence in his thought, and he senses that the presence in his mind is gone.

xxx

"Wow. You can do what you like now," Riki says, feeling jealous.

Katze snorts. They're naked and sated on his bed. He is smoking. Riki keeps stroking his flank, as if he can't get enough of touching his skin.

"Why the hell can't you be happy for once?" Riki grouses.

"Because it's not what it seems."

"You wanted it, didn't you?"

"Yes. But he might as well have told me that's it, we're through. He isn't my owner anymore. That means there's no reason for me to go back there. No, wrong, I can't go back even if I wanted to."

Something dawns on Riki. "You wanted choice."

Katze turns to face him, his golden eyes dark like his smile. "They don't get it. They have a hard time when they realise we can think for ourselves. It kind of rattles their reason to be."

For a while, they stay silent. It is a pleasant, warm silence, filled with comfortable closeness. Then Riki shuffles closer still, pressing against Katze from knee to chest as he wraps his arms around him. "You feel good," he mumbles, burrowing his face into the crook of Katze's neck.

Laughter shudders through Katze's body. "Hey, watch out... let me finish my fag."

"Did he hurt you?"

"He hasn't in a long time."

"Liar," Riki mutters.

Katze says nothing. The laughter inside him dies as quickly as it has sprung up. Staring into the emptiness that lies ahead of him, he tries to fight down his jealousy that threatens to overwhelm him.

"Go on," Riki disturbs his morose thoughts, "say it."

"What?"

"It's because of me." He sounds miserable beyond his put-on pluckiness. "He's chucking you out so he can-"

"Shut up," Katze breaks in, turning towards him. For a moment, they look at each other, then Katze pushes the almost spent cigarette between Riki's lips. "I wanted it, now I got it. We all make our decisions, and sometimes... well, let's just say, this was a lose-lose situation. I couldn't bear it anymore. I made my choice."

"Losing Iason so you could be-"

"Myself. My own boss. There you have it. It's cool. Don't worry."

_It's like giving absolution,_ he thinks, as he feels the turmoil in his mind settle slowly. _But sometimes it's harder than this. And perhaps, there are times when it can't be done at all._

xxx


	8. Chapter 8

Iason slides into the seat in the centre of the great hall and settles his hands on the armrests. The hall is filled with dusk, sparks of light drifting from the dome high above like sunspecks. He watches in deep silence as they surround the floating sculpture of Jupiter with a faint halo. He lets the stillness of this space seep into his mind, and then he lays back his head and closes his eyes.

_Now I know pain._

The thought rises in him like the swell of waves, driven by a distant storm. He lets it flow unhindered.

_I learned of loss._

The waves lap ashore heavily, washing away at the cliffs that cut into the water.

_I found..._

He snaps his eyes open and stares at the shimmering sculpture. His throat tightens, as if the silken cord was still looped around it, making it hard for him to breathe. And then the waves crest, the storm raging towards the rocks, battering and breaking away in exhaustion, only to race back with renewed force, beating, whipping, bursting into foam and taking with it a fraction of the shield, a grain of eternity.

Iason rises abruptly, his hands clenching by his sides, his breathing heavy.

_I refuse to drown._

xxx

In the darkness of his den, the blinds drawn to lock out every trace of light, Katze crouches between his bed and the blackened window. On the bare concrete floor around him, a handful of small white tablets are scattered among cold cigarette butts, some scrunched up where he's stepped on them. He is unclothed. The room smells of rotting walls and peeling plaster. From the bathroom the reek of waste. The bed hasn't been made in days, the covers are half-dragged off, the mattress bare. The computer screen is empty.

Katze rocks back and forth, a nervy rhythm that helps him pick some of those little pills off the ground and pop them into his mouth. He gropes about, an empty bottle rolls away with a hollow ring. He snorts, remembers something and turns to drag himself up on the edge of the bed. He is too shaky to stand, so he kneels, then crawls on hands and knees, pausing when he gets too dizzy. Nausea is cramping his stomach, but he makes it into the filthy bathroom without missing the door. From a heap on the edge of the sink, he scoops some powder and snorts it up his nose, then he sags with his back against the tiled wall and waits for the effect of the drug to kick in.

While he is sitting there, an idea brushes his numbed mind. He raises his hand and tries to touch his face. He misses, tries again, misses and then hits the spot. He laughs. His fingers, nails uncut and dirty, trace the scar. Feeling every knot, every ridge and furrow.

Again. Scraping over tender skin.

Once more. With more pressure, something cutting into the fog that wraps his brains.

An explosion of pleasure that comes with the pain, the first droplets of blood that smear his fingertips. He licks them, tasting the salt and steel, the cloying sweetness. Hunger springs at him, making him ravenous, for the first time in days he feels as if he can eat, put something else than cigarettes, drugs and booze into his system. He keeps scratching, licking, excitement growing, rippling, coiling deep in his belly, until it blooms in silent pleasure, sobs of release shuddering through him as he loses himself at last.

He's figured it out. And when he's sobered up enough, he cleans himself up, sweeps the rubbish under his computer desk, and picks up the phone.

"Katze here," he says, switching on the computer to start working. "Two things, my friend. I want some special supplies... Black Moon, yes. And someone who can cater to my preferences. I expect your offers. Don't make me wait too long."

xxx

Riki is slouching against the bannister of the terrace when Iason returns. Riki doesn't turn. He is smoking and fraying a length of black rope. Iason pauses by the door across the large lounge, the room with its clinical neatness suddenly goes on his nerves.

_Nerves? That's what Riki would say._

"Show me," Riki says without looking.

Iason tilts his head. "What do you wish to learn?"

"All you taught him. I wanna know everything."

Iason feels heat wash through him, so sudden that he is tempted to give in straightaway. Instead, he goes to change from his formal suit into a more relaxed one, made of soft black fabric without the elaborate trimmings of office. When he steps back into the lounge, Riki glances over his shoulder - and swallows hard as he takes in Iason's appearance, the clothes that outline his shape, the swath of silverblond hair that provides a striking contrast, and then he meets Iason's eyes.

Cool blue, barely containing the fire beneath the ice.

"Are you sure, Riki?" Iason's voice is quiet, a raspy murmur that sets Riki's guts churning.

"Yeah, sure," he growls, sticking out his chin. He wants to smoke, but he's used up his packet of cigarettes, their ends scrunched out on the clean tiles.

"You know," Iason says, taking one more step to the exact centre of the room, "what the first lesson was I taught him?"

Riki curls his lips in a smirk. "I have an idea."

"Really." Iason stretches out his hand.

_What, are we gonna shake hands now? _thinks Riki, but then he meets Iason's gaze again, and it dawns on him.

"Cat got your tongue, or what?" he quips, pushing himself off the bannister. He is not about to chicken out now that the game is on.

He barely gets within reach of Iason's long arms when he finds himself pushed back and down, the weight of Iason's grip making Riki's knees buckle. They hit the floor hard. He yelps, pain shooting up into his legs and radiating from his shoulder as Iason's fingers claw into muscles and tendons as if to pry the joint apart.

"The first lesson," Iason says softly, "was caution."

He lets go. Wincing, Riki draws a hasty breath. Iason stoops and caresses his hair, then his lips touch Riki's brow. "Regrettably, he did not learn it well."

"What, because you weren't a great teacher?" Riki rattles out before Iason's backhand throws him onto the ground.

"Second one was respect," Iason lectures, his features even, his tone unruffled, but Riki can see his gaze flare up.

"Try earning it," he bites out, the words slurred from a split lip that fills his mouth with blood. He spits it out, a fat red glob on Iason's clean floor.

"I will," Iason tells him, grabs his hair and drags him up until they are eye to eye. Iason smiles. Riki glares, and at that moment a burning rage fills him, a hatred that is helpless and overwhelming, fogging his mind, choking him until he thinks he's going to burst. He hates Iason. He hates himself for wanting this, for longing, for the desire that makes him crawl to Iason's feet and let him hit and hurt. But now he senses that he's getting close - and if Iason won't give it to him, he can create the reason for this.

_I want him less. I win, _it crosses his mind. _I have to win._

"How you gonna do that, huh?" he spits, spraying blood over Iason's immaculate skin. "It doesn't work like that."

"Trust me, it does." Iason lets go of him and steps back. "Hate me if you wish. Lie to yourself. I don't care because it does not matter."

"You really think you own me?"

Iason reaches out. Flinching in spite of himself, Riki closes his eyes, waiting...

Iason's caress, featherlight on Riki's cheek, nearly makes him cry.

"Yes," Iason says, barely above his breath. "I do."

_And my last lesson? The conqueror will yield to the conquered.  
__In time, Riki. Everything in its time..._

xxx

Wearing only jeans, the fly unbuttoned, Katze lies on his stomach on his bed. He is alone. His wrists are rubbed raw. His head is lolling over the edge of the mattress. He is reading a computer printout with the latest trading data for the goods he deals in. From time to time, he dips a white cotton rag into a plastic bowl with water and slings it back across his shoulders and upper back to cool the welts that mar his skin. He is smoking and enjoying the sensation even though the bedding is soaked through. A small puddle has gathered in the hollow at the base of his spine, but the waistband of the jeans rides so low it exposes most of his backside. His body is still humming with heat but the tension is gone, and for a few precious moments, he feels mellow and at peace.

It doesn't seem important just then that he's given in at last. That, with all his freedom, he has created for himself the illusion of constraints, that he's gone looking for what he's lost by seeking out pain, and that, in the end, he is doing exactly what Iason wants from him.

He knows all of this. And he still has no idea how to deal with it during the empty eternity ahead of him.

xxx


	9. Chapter 9

They realise that Riki has disappeared when he doesn't turn up for a job Katze has given him. Katze knows immediately that this is not a slip - Riki is boisterous but reliable in his work. Katze contacts Iason, and the hunt is on but there's no trace, no signal. Silence only, as if the earth had swallowed Riki.

Katze feels numb as he scours the streets of the city, exhausts his contacts in the outskirts and burns favours and credits in the slums. Iason is livid, and beyond his iron will Katze can see him burn. Jealousy and hatred, anger and longing all churn inside the redhead, making him bleed until he is too exhausted to care. He tells himself that he keeps searching to do Iason a favour, and because he feels a bit sorry for Riki. He almost misses the urgent message that Iason leaves for him on his palmtop.

Katze can see the blaze rise over the ruins of Dana Bahn long before he gets there. There is nothing he can do to stop what's happening.

xxx

Jupiter's howl shakes the city. Katze sits in darkness, alone. On the floor, a half-smoked cigarette. He keeps his eyes closed. His mind is dark, too, filled by pain, remorse, regret for the words said and unsaid, for the life not lived, for things missed and mislaid, for all that's been buried and ignored. He's lost his sense of time when Raoul's voice stirs him. On the terminal, Raoul's face, serene as always. It's his eyes that give him away, the flicker of emotion that Katze can relate to.

"It is your fault," Raoul says flatly. "You could have prevented this."

Katze needs a few heartbeats to focus and rise from the haze of drugs and nicotine that gels in his brain. "Me?" He snorts some powder from the back of his hand, then leans back and stares at Raoul. "How was I supposed to stop Iason?"

"You called with the information."

Katze smirks. "You saying that I could have held him back if you couldn't? That's quite funny, in a way." He doesn't feel like laughing. It's a cruel joke, and in his grief sinks a sense of dread.

A shadow of disgust passes over Raoul's features. "Iason had exotic tastes. I do not share those."

"You should taste before you spit."

Raoul ignores the remark. "I expect you to present yourself for a business meeting tomorrow. You will receive the details shortly."

"I'm not working for you. I'm my own boss."

A thin smile curves Raoul's lips. "We will see about that."

xxx

Katze has to leave his gun with the minders that guard the entrance to Raoul's suite. He is allowed into the place that used to belong to Iason. It has not changed but it feels different with Raoul sitting behind the glass desk. And then Katze realises that the second chair is gone. He has to stand. He links his hands behind his back and keeps close to the door.

Raoul watches him in silence. Katze stares through him, at the shimmering city beyond the panorama window. He hasn't felt this nervy in a long time. He is ravenous for a cigarette but doesn't ask whether he can smoke because he knows what the answer would be.

"I have reactivated your profile." Raoul's voice, cool and distant, hits Katze like a rock in the face.

"You can't do this," he bursts out.

Raoul watches him, his expression frosty. "I am Iason's successor. I asked for an inventory and I understand that you are part of his estate."

"Iason terminated my contract! He erased my profile and all tracking data!"

"I find backup copies useful."

Katze starts to feel ill. "My contract is void."

"I think you will find it is as valid as ever."

"Iason let me go."

"Iason was... unwell," Raoul says, and a shadow of sorrow, or pity perhaps, passes over his face. "It was a lapse of judgement."

Katze says nothing. He feels cold and heavy, and his skin is clammy with sweat.

"Iason gave in to these whims sometimes," Raoul says dispassionately. Picking up something interesting in the streets and dragging it home to see what would happen. Did you think you were special? Because of your looks and skills? Perhaps you were something exotic in the slums. You are nothing here. The likes of you cannot be perfect."

"Good thing Iason reminded me," Katze murmurs, feeling his scar like a living thing.

"I agree. It ruined your value, but it is an interesting way of preventing deceit. Nobody with the right skills will repair you. In any case, you aren't worth anything now."

"Then what do you want with me?"

"Everything has its place. My job is to keep order, so I'm putting you back in yours."

Katze feels hollow. "You call yourself his friend, doing this?"

Raoul's expression remains undisturbed. "This is none of your concern. Now let us talk about the business so that I can decide what to do with it and whether to recycle you. Oh, and..." He reaches into his coat and tosses a grey metal cuff onto the glass table. "...come here and put this on. I want to know where you crawl around."

xxx

It is not difficult to find Kiri. He works at a grimy nightclub on the outskirts of the slums, where they almost reach the city. Katze watches him for a while as he dances almost naked on one of the small podiums that are lined up against the walls of the club. Kiri looks spent and much older than he is, with tired, vacant eyes and the empty smile of someone who is beyond caring. The dancefloor is crowded, but the neon-lit ticker above his head shows he hasn't made much money that night and nobody has booked him for company or more.

Katze waits until he takes a break. When Kiri comes out of the men's bathroom, Katze grips his elbow and pushes him towards the exit. Kiri protests listlessly, but Katze holds up a palm-sized holo-chip. "I bought your contract. You weren't popular, so it was cheap." He gives Kiri his coat. "Put that on. You know me?"

Kiri looks at him blankly. "I think I've seen you at the club... I'm not sure. I forget stuff all the time. Are you a customer?" He seems worried at the idea.

"No. I need someone to keep my place clean." He nudges Kiri towards the red roadster. "Get in. I'm not gonna hit you, there won't be drugs and I won't pimp you out. Clear?"

That night, Kiri sleeps on an old mattress in the garage. In the room above, Katze sits in front of his computer, his eyes narrow and tired as he stares at the computer screen, his fingers busy on the keyboard. A packet of cigarettes and a blisterpack of white pills sit on the desk. The packet is almost empty, and some of the tablets are missing. They help him to stay awake when all he wants is to sleep...

xxx


	10. Chapter 10

Katze tries to ignore the dread that sits inside him like a stone, cold and heavy. It won't go away anymore as he is waiting for Raoul's next call. He is conscious that the cuff around his wrist transmits, precisely and reliable, his movements to the man who is watching him.

_Does he really waste his time like this? _Katze wonders, then forbids himself to think about it anymore. He shows Kiri what to do to keep the house clean and lets him wash the car. There is no sign of emotion or thought in Kiri's expression. It is empty, like a desert. Katze puts a transmitter on him and starts using him as a courier. Kiri's looks remind him of Riki, and he thinks that it's probably no coincidence that the young man chose a scrambled version Riki's name. _When he could still think and feel. When he was trying to replace Riki and got him thrown out of the gang. _Without remorse, Katze remembers how easy it had been to rope Kiri in, with promises of money and status_... and the option of getting one up on Riki. Wrong, my friend, that's what Iason would say. Revenge is a dish best served cold. _

_Iason.  
__Iason...  
__I forgive you.  
_

Katze tries to say it. The words taste bitter, and his throat feels too tight.

_What's there to be forgiven anyway? No, wrong. There's too much of it._

He lights a cigarette instead.

xxx

When he catches Kiri stealing from his stash of pills and powders in the bathroom cabinet, Katze isn't surprised. He puts Kiri into a cage, a box with bars he installs in the far corner of the garage. Withdrawal sets in soon enough. For a while, Katze turns carer. Feeding, watering; sugar and medication to keep the worst symptoms down; and ignoring the pleas and tears, the loss of humanity that reduces Kiri to a heap of pain-wracked misery. He offers himself, the begs, he crawls but Katze isn't touched by any of it. He feels nothing when he pushes Kiri out of the way with his foot so he can mop shit and puke from the floor and change the soiled blankets, to keep the stink at bay that has settled in the garage. Kiri never takes the step Katze is waiting for. There are no angry threats, no spirit to rise and bristle against this treatment. Kiri is empty.

xxx

Raoul keeps his silence.

_Watching, _thinks Katze, _making me a goddamn prisoner in my own place... But I'm watching too. We'll see who's better at this game._

He's used to keeping a low profile, so it doesn't matter that he only leaves the house to get food and booze and cigarettes. The underground networks he's been patiently weaving over the years are tight and reliable, and where their spiderthreads bind them to the world above, to legal trade and clean money, they have faultlines that he has secured with hooks and sinkers, bribes, threats and force where nothing else helps. And if a few should break, the rest will hold tight. The police, officially hunting him for a long time, has nothing on him. For a while, he can be alright, holed up like this. He uses couriers and cutouts for most of his work. He is busy trading, using his computer and the web as his main tools, and avoiding new negotiations where he would need to turn up in person. While business is chugging along, he buys and builds a few pieces of new software and calls in favours to engage some specialist help.

_People, systems, _he muses while hunched in front of his computer, focusing on the rapidly changing sequences of numbers and symbols that dash past his gaze, _everything changes, and all stays the same. You think you know me, but I know you better._

It's Raoul he's thinking of so uncharitably, but as he leans back and stares through the haze of cigarette smoke at the screen, it's Iason's image that pushes into his thoughts, and suddenly there is a wrenching in his chest that makes him double over and drop the fag, press his hand over his chest and rub hard. He covers his eyes with his other hand. He stays like that for a while, in the stale stillness of his room, until the pounding of blood in his head fades and he regains his breath. He pinches the bridge of his nose hard. He blinks and finall he dares to look up. The screen is empty, but Katze doesn't feel relief.

_It's your fault. All of this. Why did you lie to me?_

xxx

It starts unnerving him that there is no sign from Raoul. Cooped up in front of his computer, Katze can feel the tide of paranoia rise inside his mind. He is raw, his body numb from lack of light and exercise, his eyes grainy from staring at the screen for too long. His nerves are starting to fray the closer he gets to what he's chasing after. Almost as an aside, he finds out where Guy lives. He hasn't seen Guy since dragging him away from the burning ruins of Dana Bahn and dumping him at an unlicenced clinic that caters to the underground.

_You still owe me money, you bastard, _thinks Katze. _But this will have to wait. No point calling it in now, let alone what else you owe. There's nothing you can do to pay that off._

xxx

He lets Kiri out of his cage when he sees the resignation on his face, the empty foodbowl and sober gaze. Kiri isn't wracked by fits and cramps anymore, and he's been sleeping a lot. The black rings around his eyes are gone along with the grey pallor and the sheen of cold sweat on his skin. He looks shaken but refreshed. Katze gives him the key to the cage and lets him turn the cell into his private space.

xxx

Raoul calls at last. Katze stares at his image, Raoul's features serene and dispassionate as always, his eyes cool.

"I want you here now. Get moving," he orders, and before Katze can say anything, the image fades out. A bleep from the computer announces the arrival of a data stream Katze has been waiting for. He's paid and worked relentlessly to get it, this piece of information that he hopes will help him deal with his situation, one way or another. It's something he didn't want to know but now he has no choice.

_The past never quite goes away, my friend. It's a part of us.  
__Yes, Iason. Yes, it is._

The data is scrambled and he has no time to unravel the file. He burns it onto a holo-disk and deletes it from the system before calling Kiri to tell him not to wait up.

xxx

Katze feels quite alone in the large room, with Raoul sitting behind the glass desk. Katze has left his gun in the gloves compartment of his sportster. Outside of these walls, he is someone. Here he is nothing.

"I have an offer for you," Raoul says without preamble. "Listen carefully." He runs an appraising gaze over Katze who does his best to appear unbothered. "I know your little game. I saw you ferreting around in the computer systems. I think you wanted to be seen, so I widened my search for any other disturbances. It wasn't easy, but I know where you've been."

Katze feels very cold although he is sure the room is climatised and just fine.

"It doesn't matter," Raoul carries on, rising to his feet. He nods at a glass box that resembles a shower cubicle, installed against the plain white wall at the back of the room, like an aquarium in front of a plain canvas. "Do you know what that is?"

"A scanner," Katze says hoarsely

"A programmable body scanner," Raoul corrects him. "Which combines with a regeneration unit, or pod."

Katze stares, unable to tear his gaze away. "Iason said..."

"That the technology was not ready," Raoul completes his sentence. "He was right. Undress."

Katze flushes deeply. Panic assaults him, and he scrambles frantically after his composure. "What?"

Raoul stares at him. "I'm not used to repeating myself. Do you need help? I can call someone."

Katze gives in. Realisation and helpless anger follow in quick succession, but he has learned to deal with this at least. The humiliation of being stared at, judged and found lacking. He can't get used to it, but he knows how to handle himself. Without a word, he lowers his head and takes off his clothes.

"Step in." Raoul moves to the controls of the scanner.

Katze hesitates for a heartbeat or two, but there is nothing he can do. He walks into the glassbox and closes his eyes. His life doesn't flash past his mind, he doesn't say any farewells. His mind is silent, a dark, empty plane. He can sense the barely-there hum as the scanner powers up, and for a moment he believes he can feel the beams fingering his body from head to toe. It makes him ill and he has to fight the urge to throw up.

"Now, look," Raoul's cool voice drifts into Katze's mind.

He wills himself to open his eyes. His skin glows pale silver in the light that fills the scanner's chamber. And when Katze looks down at himself, his body is whole. His breath catches in his chest. By instinct, he touches his face. The scar is gone, his skin smooth like silk. His hair falls softly over his shoulders.

"That's... not possible," he rasps.

"It is. This is you, ten years younger."

When Katze looks up, Raoul stands before him, a strange expression on his face. "I always wondered what Iason saw in you."

_A beautiful mind, _it whispers in Katze's thoughts, but the burning in his chest wipes out Iason's voice.

Raoul raises his hand, pulls off the white glove and touches Katze's face, firmly tracing the line where the scar has been. His fingers are dry and warm, like Iason's. "But it gets better," he says quietly. "I can make it true. You can become whole again. Beautiful. Almost... perfect."

Katze breaks away, unable to resist the urge to touch his groin. "I can... feel it," he breathes, close to sinking into white oblivion.

"Try. It works," comes Raoul's dry invitation.

It's too much. Katze doesn't care that Raoul is observing him like a test animal. He ignores the nagging voice at the bottom of his mind that tells him it's all an illusion, a perfect, cruel image designed to deceive his senses. His touch is shaky, clumsy but the sensations are blindingly sweet, alien and familiar all the same. He doesn't last long, and when release rips through him, a wave of elation surges through him and blasts away everything else. When he gathers himself, the scanner is off, the glass splattered with whitish splotches. The smears fade away as the glass walls grow cold to the touch. Katze shivers as he covers his mutilated privates with his sticky hand. He wants to howl, or bury himself somewhere nobody can find him.

Raoul pushes his clothes towards him with his foot. He looks faintly disgusted. "Wipe yourself down and cover up." He turns to sit down behind his desk. "Consider it. I am being generous."

"And the catch?" Katze murmurs, turning his back in a hopeless attempt to recover some of his dignity while he is getting dressed.

"The technology isn't tested. There's no guarantee, and you don't trust me."

"Sure. And why me?"

"You have no value. You are available. And you have the right physical characteristics."

Katze, still deeply shaken, closes his belt and puts on his coat, then turns to look at Raoul. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because," Raoul says calmly, "I can. Call it scientific curiosity."

"That's it?"

"Why are you never satisfied?"

"Nothing's for free. I learned the hard way, remember?"

"Ah, yes. There's a price, of course, but you might consider it a bonus. In the process of repairing you I will extinguish your memory."

Katze stays still, unable to find words for the turmoil in his mind. Raoul seems to read him like a book. He lets the silence grow between them, until it is thick and cold, before carrying on.

"Pain, passion, anger, grief, all gone. I will give you new memories, a new mind." Raoul touches the computer before him. A holographic image appears as if the air was condensing into translucent, coloured mist in the centre of the room. A woman and a small boy. They are talking and laughing, but there is no sound. She brushes a caress over the boy's short red hair and smiles. A man, holding the child's hand. The man has long blond hair. A youth, bent over a stack of books next to a computer. He wears the clothing of an elite and his copper hair flows richly over his shoulders...

"Stop it," Katze grinds out.

The images fade.

"I can arrange citizenship for you. You would be free to receive a share of Iason's estate. A new life." Raoul rises to his feet and steps close to Katze. "A whole new man," he says, his voice low, worming its way into Katze's mind. "I expect your answer tomorrow."

xxx


	11. Chapter 11

Katze wraps a rag tightly around the cuff on his wrist that turns him from a free man into a thing. A piece of kit, part of an inventory. To be bought, sold or disposed of at will.

_Raoul's will._

He touches the gun that sits snugly in its holster again. He clamps down on the surge of anger and agony before it can bloom into blinding heat. He drives home at breakneck speed, the wind tearing at his hair as he blasts through the streets. The highway melts into strips of light and colour until the darkness of the slums encroaches, tendrils of black embracing the golden glow of the city. He is relieved when he delves in, letting himself be swallowed up without hesitation.

_Home. Really..._

Kiri has tried to make dinner. Katze has a microwave and an electric kettle, both tucked against the wall at the far end of the computer desk, and covered by a layer of grime. Kiri has heated a large can of soup and poured boiling water from the kettle over some instant coffee in the only mug he could find. The thing is a chipped enamel affair, pale blue with rust stains and the patina left by years of stale coffee. The soup is salty and greasy, the coffee too strong, but Katze eats from the tepid tin and has a mug of the bitter stuff because it is hot and his stomach needs something other than cigarettes.

"I went out like you told me," Kiri says, settling on his knees by Katze's feet. Katze sits on the edge of the mattress, without his shirt, the mug and a fag in hand. His gaze is hooded, his expression distant, but he doesn't miss a beat.

"Did he give it to you?"

Kiri reaches into his jeans pocket and pulls out a small envelope. "He said that's all he could find, and that he's even with you now."

Katze gives him the mug and takes the envelope. A disc falls out as he shakes it. For a few moments, he sits still, looking at the shimmering, semi-transparent silicone slice in his palm. _It pays to pay,_ he thinks, _and a copper dealing shit in my patch is just what I needed to solve this one. Those people never learn that there's no out once you're in... no, wrong, there's only one way out, going to sleep in a nice warm bed of setting concrete..._

Kiri glances up at him. "Sir?"

Katze snaps out of his contemplation. He looks at the young man who quickly casts down his eyes. Kiri sticks a finger in his mouth and chews at the nail.

Katze bats his hand down. "Don't do that. It's bleeding already, you silly fuck."

Kiri locks his hands together, knuckles whitening. "He asked..."

"What? If you're for sale?"

Kiri's adam's apple bobs. "I... Sir, if you want me to sleep with-"

"Shut up. You got no pride at all, huh?"

Kiri bites his lip. "I know I've given you trouble, and-"

"Jesus," Katze cuts in as he gets up and turns to his computer to pop the disc into its slot. "Don't give me this shit. Look, I might have to find a new owner for you, but I'll make sure it's somebody who'll treat you well, okay?"

On the screen, the scanned image of a police file brightens. The mugshot of a woman sits on top of the page, fixed to it with an old-fashioned paperclip. Katze stares at it for a long time, smoking in silence. She barely resembles the hazy hologram Raoul showed him.

"You want to sell my contract?" Kiri asks shakily behind him.

Katze nods absentmindedly. "I might have to take a trip soon."

"I can come with you," Kiri says, desperation rising in his tone.

"Not where I'm going. I won't be back in a long time. Perhaps I won't be back at all, who knows." He finishes reading, clicks the file off and squashes the fag out in the ashtray Kiri has put next to the screen. Turning, he catches Kiri's gaze for a second before Kiri's eyes flick away. A damp track runs down his cheek.

Katze leans close and rubs it dry with his thumb. "Get a grip," he says. "I have to go out tonight and I want you to come along. Let's move."

xxx

He is surprised and then he isn't to see the man waiting by the ruins of Dana Bahn. Katze parks his sportster before the tyres get torn by the remnants of steel webbing and sharp-edged rubble and walks, every step grinding on the torn ground. The smell of wet ashes and the sharp reek of burned plastic lies heavily in the damp air. The smog over the city lends the place a muggy orange sheen, a strange dusk filled with shadows and memories of pain. Kiri trails after Katze. He doesn't know what to do with his hands and finally stuffs them into his jeans pockets, keeping his head down. He appears beat and afraid.

"Fancy to see you again," Katze says as the man turns. "You don't look so well, Guy."

"Yeah," comes the snide reply, "life's a bitch."

"Isn't it just."

"You said you had a deal."

"Yes. I see your shoulder has recovered. Shame your arm's lost, but hey, that's just tough, right? What's the word - don't give them your hand 'cos they'll rip out your arm?" He shakes his head. "Iason used to take stuff like that too literally. Now, I understand the gentlemen who mended you aren't happy about unpaid bills. I've been told you're on the run."

"You put me in that fucking place," Guy snarls.

"Wasn't that good of me? They kept you alive. A favour to Riki." _To Iason._

"You crippled piece of shit! You dragged him back to that... sick fuck, with your dirty tricks and your money."

"Still on a roll then, are we?" Katze lights up and exhales a long stream of smoke through his nostrils. "Riki was right. You'll never get it. Well, it doesn't matter. Here's my offer." Katze grabs Kiri's shoulder and nudges him forward.

Guy's eyes narrow. "You're joking."

"Kiri, meet Guy," Katze says. "He needs someone to take care of him. Be his other arm, in a way." He smirks. "Isn't that right?"

Guy spits out. "You bastard."

"Never expect gratitude," Katze says frostily, "from rats. My business contacts aren't happy, but they were willing to hold off for a little while. Until I send them word, or money. What is it to be?"

Guy steps close and reaches out to touch Kiri's face. "Riki," he murmurs.

Kiri keeps his eyes down. His shoulders are slouching, he is limp, tears rolling down his cheeks. They gather in fat drops at his jaw and fall, making dark little splotches on his grey tee.

"Don't you recognise me?" Guy asks, his hand sliding down over Kiri's neck to his shoulder. It's a caress, and it's helpless and desperate.

"I don't know," Kiri murmurs. "I keep forgetting things all the time."

Katze watches them. He can hear the wind rustle in the ruins, and clouds of dust drive across the wasteland. He can, with closed eyes, find the place where Iason died, and he could have his revenge, now. He could shoot the two men before him. Nobody would miss them. Nobody would come after him. He swallows hard and drags his eyes open again. Dust and smoke burn under his lids, and his throat is dry.

Guy glances past Kiri at Katze. "I've got nowhere to stay. He'd be out on the streets."

They both know what that would mean for someone like Kiri. Katze holds up a key. "An acquaintance of mine has a place in Ceres. The rent will be paid. Find yourself some work. He might help if you ask nicely. Oh, and there's something else..."

xxx

Guy cannot refuse. He takes Kiri with him to the flat Katze has arranged for them, and he will face his memories of Riki every time he looks at Kiri.

_And Kiri... he has no memories. An empty mind. Riki, without the spirit.  
They deserve each other. _

Katze drives home, a shade of contentment dulling the ache in his chest.

_Everyone got what they asked for.  
And sometimes, my friend, what we want is not what we need..._

xxx


	12. Chapter 12

Raoul rises a fraction too quickly when Katze steps into the suite. There is a second of surprise, painted large across Raoul's face, the question in his gaze, the tension in his body, before he regains his steely composure.

Katze pauses, his hand with the gun relaxed by his side. He smiles thinly. "Didn't expect me?"

Raoul glances at the computer where a tiny dot of light blinks on a map of the city and its surroundings. The dot is far from where he stands.

Katze steps closer and holds up his left arm, baring his wrist where the tracer cuff should have been. "I gave it to someone who needs it more than me. Where's he, hm? Let me guess - sitting tight somewhere in Ceres?" _You've been watching Guy for the last few hours. I hope it was entertaining._

"The code," Raoul murmurs, looking up at Katze, searching his face. "You broke it?"

"I couldn't have done it at such short notice, with you watching me like a goddamn hawk. There's pride, and there's being pragmatic. In the end, it only matters who wins, doesn't it? So I bought it."

Raoul's cheeks begin to redden. "That's impossible."

"You believe that?" Katze lightly waves the gun at him. "Whatever. I thought I'd do the decent thing and give you a heads up."

Raoul ignores the weapon. He is composed, in a cold, hostile way. "For what? You still want it, don't you? That's why you don't shoot me now."

"Wrong," Katze replies dryly. "I don't."

There is a break as if a rift opens between them, the void filling with silence, thick and black.

"You could have called," Raoul says at last, his voice slightly hoarse.

"Some of my business I do in person. When it matters."

Raoul shakes his head. Beneath his carefully contained facade, he seems tense. "You could have it all now. Everything you wanted."

Katze reaches into his pocket and tosses the holo-disk with the police file onto Raoul's desk. "No, I couldn't. I didn't know my mother. Her thoughts, her dreams. Who was she, part of an inventory? Sent up the pole by the owner? Perhaps he wanted to keep the brat but not the mother. Or he had other plans for his sprog, who knows. I just knew the junkwhore she'd become. Looks like she had a rebellious streak. Perhaps it's catching? Took some guts to run away and put me into this shitty world, but she wasn't cut out for life in Ceres. I've seen enough of that. They hide in the slums with nowhere to go. They start whoring 'cos it's all they can do, then it's pimps and johns and junk, shooting up until they don't eat anymore and pop it. The joys of life in the gutter. Who put me into the orphanage? Daddy dear? Whatever. It doesn't matter. There's no connection, nothing real about the stuff you showed me; it's fake, I don't need it. Iason, he was real to me. I want to keep him."

"He is dead," Raoul says, something flickering in his gaze. Surprise perhaps, mingling with renewed interest and a different kind of curiosity. "You throw away this chance so you can live with memories of a dead man?"

_And the touch of a living that reminds me... too much-  
__No. Don't go there. It won't happen again. It's better like this._

"And you? Want to wipe my brain clean so you're the only one-" Katze breaks off when he sees the flare in Raoul's eyes. _Bullseye, _he thinks, startled and disturbed.

Raoul turns his back abruptly. "If you wanted to shoot me, you'd done it already."

"I'm thinking about it."

"While you are doing that, let me rephrase my offer." Raoul folds his arms and stares through his own reflection into the light-hazed darkness of the city. Like this, he can also watch Katze. "You could work for me, as you did for Iason."

"What, so you can watch me, like a bug on its back?"

"A fetching image," Raoul remarks dryly. "Before you carry on, think. You might have put my guards out, but why do you think nobody's trying to break down the doors yet?"

Katze snivels. "Fair enough," he concedes, acknowledging - reluctantly and slightly unnerved - the fact that Raoul has been willing to have this conversation.

Raoul turns to meet his gaze. "There is no catch. I can find you if I want, with or without the tracer. You could kill me, but there will be others like me. I could stop you from leaving this place, I could do what I like with you. I find this more interesting."

Katze's fingers around the gun turn white. Raoul doesn't flinch. He keeps looking until Katze breaks away, lighting another fag. "Okay," he says at last. "I get the drift."

xxx

It feels strange to be back like this. He comes and goes as he used to, but every time he enters the office suite, it jars him to see Raoul sitting behind the desk, or walking around dictating into a machine, or sifting through electronic business records and transactions. The scanner is still there, but covered with white cloth, and they both ignore the machine.

Katze buries his grief with work. He stays long hours, until his vision blurs and the screen turns fuzzy before his eyes. Raoul keeps his distance, but the distance shrinks from a separate office cubicle across the room to an open-plan desk, before the second chair is back opposite what once had been Iason's place and is now Raoul's.

"You may smoke," he says one night, when Katze slumps back into his chair and rubs his eyes, his hands shaky with exhaustion and the lack of his favourite drug. Katze almost jumps. He shoots a glance across the desk, but Raoul keeps reading the mail that has clogged his inbox. Katze thinks he is starting to hallucinate. He fingers the keyfob he wears like a badge on his lapel - it's his pass into the building, a sign that he is allowed, even required to enter and move around freely. He's turned a few heads, and fresh whispers have sprung up like a sudden breeze across a field of weeds, but if Raoul knows - and Katze is sure he does - he doesn't let on.

"I'd prefer a drink," Katze says, not sure whether he should venture this far. Probing the ground, as if crossing a swamp. _But then, life is for living, my friend..._

Raoul catches him staring when he suddenly looks up. "You know where he kept the stuff."

Katze gets up too quickly to look comfortable and goes to get a bottle of wine from the drinks cabinet in the adjacent bedroom. He takes one of the elegant crystal glasses from a tray on top of the cabinet, and on second thought grabs another one. _So we are both caught in the past. Isn't the world full of surprises, _it drifts through his mind as he walks back and sets bottle and glasses down on the glass desk, between his laptop and Raoul's keyboard. He pulls out a penknife and jabs it into the cork, deftly opening the bottle. Without a word, he pours two glasses as if he would have done for Iason and himself. The thought is painful enough to take his breath away. He settles back in his chair and drinks deeply, then lights up without caring to ask. _Don't get too comfy here, it's just a whim he has... Why do they all have to look so damn alike? Elite my ass. The way he looks at me, he's hungry, like any punter in a sleazy Ceres bar. Why do I still miss you, Iason? Damn you. Liar. Cheat. Why did I ever let you pull the wool over my eyes? _

"How does it feel?"

Raoul's cool voice yanks Katze out of his morose musings. He leans forward to refill his glass and notices that Raoul's is half empty. Holding the stem between his thumb and forefinger, Raoul turns it slowly. There is a small red stain on his white glove. Katze stares at it, fascinated because it reminds him of other things.

_I'm a hypocrite. There's good pain and bad pain. Iason and I, we were the perfect match, in bed and elsewhere. He knew exactly how to do stuff to me, even after... I was lying to him. I still trusted him, never stopped. I was an idiot. He was a bastard. What does this make us now? Whatever. It's too late now, for all of that, and my head hurts from all this shit._

Shaking his head, he blinks himself back to reality. Raoul's gaze is intent, patient, shot through with curiosity.

"What?" Katze says, his voice hoarse.

"Copulating. How does it feel?"

Katze nearly laughs. "You mean fucking. Screwing, making love, sleeping with each other. That's what people do."

Raoul flinches at the vulgarities. "Yes, that."

Katze shrugs. "Close. Intimate." He thinks, then adds, "Warm." _Or hot. Burning, searing, ravenously hot, like diving into boiling water... _He shivers and clasps the glass harder. The mirror of wine, red and black under the light, trembles, tiny rings running across it to break at its edges and send sparks of ruby across Katze's pale fingers.

"It's unhygienic," Raoul notes.

Katze slides deeper into his chair and closes his eyes. "Jesus, yes. It's dirty, you gotta love it," he mumbles, realising that he is getting drunk too fast. _So what? Like in old times. I'd get pissed, and you'd get laid... Iason, what the hell was in this bottle? The label said something about fortified and aged. Whatever rocks your boat._

Raoul shakes his head. "If you give up so much, you halve yourself. You're becoming weak. Faulty."

"Man, Raoul, you really don't get it, do you? Aren't you lot all clones of each other? How about doubling your strength? Merging into one to become perfect? Wow, now I sound like you, spewing all this philosophical bullshit."

"Like Iason," comes the quiet retort, so soft, Katze nearly misses it.

When it snags his mind, there is a new surge of agony of the bad kind, the stuff he needs to snuff and drown out. He reaches for the bottle, then pauses as he catches Raoul's scent. Clean, sharp and sweet, like perfumed rain. Even that reminds him of Iason. He swallows hard and sags back, squeezing his eyes shut more firmly and giving in at last to the overwhelming tide of memories.

There is a silence that's too heavy to bear. Katze listens. He can hear his own breathing, the rushing of his blood in his ears, the beating of his heart. The room is so still, he can even hear the faint hum of the computer screen.

"It was too much," he murmurs. "Too much of everything."

Raoul's voice is very close when he hears it. "I know."

And then, into the small space between them, Katze says, "You can touch me if you want."

xxx


	13. Chapter 13

He's rendered himself vulnerable by saying it, but he can handle this. It doesn't matter, it's no more than a lapse in dignity he can cope with. It's nothing against the spike of desperation, the white-hot longing, animal need mingling sharply with the hunger that's tearing at him, and the agony of sorrow. He's been starving himself of feeling for such a long time, it is like drops of fire on his skin. Blistering. Welcome. Making him crave more, relentlessly debasing himself, like an addict gone cold turkey.

Raoul traces the scar. "It would be more comfortable if you could lie down," he says, sounding like a medical examiner.

_Old habits,_ it passes through Katze's fogged mind as he gets up and lurches to the bedroom, the path so familiar he knows it blindly. He drops onto the bed that almost fills the wide room and sprawls out on his back. The bed is plain white. It has metal posts and railings at its foot and headend, a defined isle of crisp linens beneath a mirrored ceiling. There are mirrors on the walls too, and soft light suffuses the room with a golden dusk Iason had found complimentary to his skin. The place is clinically clean and sinfully inviting.

Raoul's scent drifts into the room and the light brightens. He sits down on the mattress and without asking pushes Katze's tee up. Katze notices that Raoul's hands are bare. His skin is warm and dry, his touch firm as if he was scrutinising a test subject.

_Any touch will do now. _Katze bites back a groan and rises towards those probing, prodding fingers. They brush over his chest, trace the contours of his ribs, the arches of his hips. They run up the faint trail of copper hair that runs from his crotch, dip into his navel and wander along the ridge of his stomach. They are curious, and Katze feels as if a thousand eyes crawl over his skin, mapping out scars and marks, sinking feelers into his flesh and sending currents through his nerves. Sweat starts to sheen his body and makes the sheets beneath him stick to his back. He can feel his groin like a phantom limb, and the image of his body, complete and glowing, rises in his mind. He almost sobs.

"Aren't you afraid?" Raoul asks, pausing in his exploration. His thumb sits in the hollow of Katze's throat, his fore- and middle finger tap lightly against the pulse at the side of his neck.

"And you?" Katze grinds out, "Aren't you hard?"

Raoul rises. Katze hears the clink of a glass being set down on the drinks cabinet and the measured swish of clothes. It recalls other images, and he covers his eyes with his arm.

"You learned the secret," Raoul says quietly as he returns, a warm, heavy presence. "You know what makes us the way we are."

"Whatever," Katze murmurs, rather put out. In his mind, scraps of an argument spring up, replaying like a hung-up file. He can hear his voice, younger, panicked, _who cares whether you get it up without flipping a switch?_ _I won't tell anyone, I can keep a secret..._ And Iason's retort, delayed, his tone a mixture of anger and anguish, heat and ice and endless pain, _here, now it's solved..._

"There is no middle ground for us." Raoul lies down and turns on his side so he can watch and touch. "We can't be spontaneous. We make a decision, and once this... drive inside us is unlocked, we become ordinary."

"And that's how big momma keeps control over you," Katze rasps. _Iason hated me for finding out. Knowing about the plot against him saved my neck. A life for a life, all because I figured he couldn't screw without help, unlike me. _

"There can be no order without control," says Raoul, blandly. Katze can smell him, feel his hair that fans over Katze's chest when Raoul leans over him to touch one hard dark pink nipple. He looks on with interest as Katze's skin ripples with goosebumps. "Are you cold?"

"Jesus," Katze breathes, "haven't you read enough scientific crap to get it?" He grabs Raoul's hand and puts it over his crotch. "Here. Touch it already. I got no hangups. I like it. Use your hands, mouth, teeth, whatever makes you feel good. I showered. I rinsed out. I prepped, like a good toy. You can disinfect yourself afterwards." He means to sound ironic but the words taste bitter.

"You knew this would happen?"

"No. But I thought it might." _Like, curiosity killed the cat? Feels like the joke's on me, Iason_. Katze pulls off his tee. When he leans over the side of the bed to drop the rag, he can feel Raoul's fingers slide to the small of his back, then up his spine to pause between his shoulder blades, then examine with the same measured curiosity the dark stripes and knotty scars that mark his skin there.

"That would have hurt," Raoul notes.

"You doing a pathology lecture, or what?" Katze slumps back and finds himself looking up at Raoul who has propped himself up on his elbow. Katze busies himself, unbuttons his jeans and shuffles them off, along with his underpants, socks and shoes, and kicks them off the bed. Raoul's gaze is intent. His hair sliding over Katze's skin makes the redhead squirm.

"Can't you turn the light down?" Katze grunts.

"Don't you want to see?"

"No," Katze snaps. "I don't."

xxx

They both know enough about these things to make it pleasurable. There is no question about who will do what, who will yield and who will not. It's an imbalance of power that is as rigid as Jupiter's laws. His decision made, Raoul moves through the act smoothly, without hesitation, careful to give as much as he takes, as if his satisfaction comes from watching as much as doing. Perhaps more. He is used to watching. To Katze, when he can think in between blasts of lust, Raoul never seems to leave explorer mode. There is no connection beyond the flesh, and Katze is relieved about this. But when Raoul tenses, Katze drags open his eyes and looks up at him. To see Raoul's eyes glaze over, then close as he throws his head back, his hair a halo of pale gold, his teeth biting hard on his lower lip as release shudders through him in silent abandon.

It's an image too familiar. Too painful.  
Katze squeezes his eyes shut and turns his head into the pillow, willing the burning inside him to wither until it is buried under a layer of ashes.

Raoul rises without a word and goes to shower. Katze turns onto his stomach and buries his face in the messy sheets. He crosses his ankles and starts moving his legs, the motion quick and nervy as it ripples through his body. If his feet were to touch the floor, he'd be running. He grabs the top railing with one hand. Reaching beneath himself, he touches where Raoul's fingers had been earlier. It had taken Katze all of his willpower to hold back with Raoul making him squirm. Now it only takes him a few practised strokes to bring himself off.

xxx

He listens to the rushing of water in the shower until it stops. He can hear Raoul's steps and the soft rustling of clothes as he gets dressed. Later, when Katze has smoked a few cigarettes, pulled on his rags and thinks he can bear facing Raoul behind Iason's desk again, he steps out into the office space to find Raoul working already. As if nothing had happened.

_Well, nothing DID happen. Good job that, thank you, please come again..._

Raoul glances up at him. "I thought you might have fallen asleep."

Katze feels the urge to button up his coat, to wrap and cover himself in all the layers he can get. He opts for another fag instead, but the packet is empty apart from two Black Moon. He shakes his head. "You weren't that bad."

Raoul's lips twitch. "It was pleasant. But you refused me."

Katze stares at him, wondering how he could have noticed. _Perceptive, for someone without practice._ It's not a comfortable thought. "I couldn't come, that's all."

"I can't be Iason," Raoul says, his voice empty of expression.

There is a small, breathless silence, before Katze crosses the room to sit down on his chair opposite Raoul. For a few moments, they just look at one another, silent, probing. Raoul's gaze is cool, dispassionate as always, but beneath the layer of composure Katze can see something else. And recognising it like his reflection in a mirror, the storm inside him begins to subside. A weary smile passes over his lips as he allows this surprising calm to flood him.

"No," he says at last, "Neither can I." _But we can be alone together. Close and out of reach. Keeping our familiar distance. You still jealous, Raoul? Perhaps he just didn't wanna spoil you. It doesn't matter anymore. I'm learning too. It can be different. There's pleasure without pain._

And when Raoul shares the rest of the bottle with him, Katze thinks for a breathtaking moment about scrunching up the packet of cigarettes in his pocket. About two Black Moon dissolving into a pinch of lethal dust that he can shake off like flakes of the past. His fingers clasp the packet. And then he pauses, and lets go. He reaches for the glass instead and drinks deeply.

xxx

Raoul is demanding in a relentless, entirely purposeful way. They're tense with each other, in a way that keeps them both wary. Their talk is only about work. There is too much of it, and Raoul finds reasons why he wants Katze involved. There is Iason's estate, a complex web of firms, names, connections so sensitive they are like tripwires on a bomb. There are accounts, both open and hidden, funding streams and political ties that need to be unravelled, cut or serviced. Katze knows that Raoul is using him, the outsider that can easily be neutralised.

_And I know how Iason ticked,_ Katze thinks, staring at the documents and columns of figures on his laptop screen. His eyes feel scratchy, the ashtray by his feet is overfull. _Perhaps better than anyone. Not that it did any good when it mattered..._

Beyond work, there is not much else, and Katze buries all that happened where it won't irk him too much.

xxx

One night he stays too long to go home after they're done. There is no point driving to his place for the sake of snatching two hours rest in a dank, long unmade bed and with no food or drink in the house. He sleeps on the couch that had been delivered to the office suite some time back. Katze is sure it's no coincidence, but it doesn't matter what Raoul was planning when he got the thing. Katze, a lifetime ago, has decided that all that counts is reality. He likes facts, edges, the hardness of what is. He never dreams.

But he has nightmares, shrieking visions that torment him the moment he lets his guard down. They storm through his mind when he isn't looking, when he is to weary to keep up the shields of reason. He never tells Raoul about them, and unless he passes out on something or other, he never sleeps through. That night is no different. He jolts awake with his heart pounding, his pulse racing, his skin bathed in cold sweat. The echo of a gasp, the chortle of a drowning man, still in his ears, the fogs of a nightmare in his mind, Katze lies frozen until the terror fades and he recognises his surroundings. Shaking, he pulls himself up. His feet are tangled in the blanket, as if bound. He shivers in the gently climatised room that seems too large, too empty. Too still.

Groggily, he frees his legs and gets up to dig for his smokes in the pile of clothes on the floor. He is naked apart from a pair of loose shorts that hide his body, or what he doesn't want to see of it. When he lights up, his hand shakes so much, he has to try a few times before the little flame sets the tip of the fag aglow. He wanders out onto the terrace, into the smoggy night with its smells of exhaust fumes and concrete dust. The bowl of fog casts a jaundiced hue over the glittering city, and the chasms of streets have turned into bands of light.

His chest feels tight. He tries to rub the hurt away, but it sits inside him like a rock, cold and heavy. The smoke burns in his eyes, making them water. He can't bring himself to turn when he feels a wash of warmth, then a hand, fingers touching his scar, tracing it firmly, then more gently.

"Your offer," Raoul says in his deep, cool voice, "it wasn't for me."

Katze draws up his shoulders. Raoul's hand settles on the bannister, close to Katze's elbow. "I thought about certain things. Perhaps..." He pauses, taps the bannister with his fingers, a quick cadence, just once, before drawing a slow breath. "It might be a good time to re-evaluate-"

"What are you saying, Raoul?" Katze cuts in quietly. "You liked it?"

There is another small break, a second of hesitation, before Raoul says, "Yes."

Katze sucks in a lungful of smoke and lets it stream from his nostrils. "Well, at least you've fucked a pure blood." There is bitterness and laughter in his tone, an odd mix that jars Raoul.

"Yes," he says. "It helps. I believe I am starting to understand some of Iason's ideas."

"And you're not scared anymore? They might come and bite you. Boo."

"Why are you still clinging to the past? It makes you brittle. You could at least let your hair grow."

Katze feels like freezing and burning inside. "No," he says roughly, "I don't belong here."

"You could stay."

He's heard it so often in his mind, it's an old track and he has his answer, his hard-edged shielf of facts, ready. "Big momma won't like it. How would you explain it, huh?"

"I will deal with this when it comes up."

"I've heard that before. It cost me my nuts."

"Then what is it you need?"

Raoul's question startles Katze from his morose mood, pricking his mind and grating over his self-pity. He thinks for a few moments, flicks some ash away that in a shower of sparks floats away on the night-breeze. "I don't know," he says bluntly, "I have no idea what I need."

xxx

Carmen Echo! Thank you for your wonderful feedback throughout this story, and for helpfully pointing out where I could improve. You're a star! Cheers, LH


	14. Chapter 14

Raoul is close. Katze needs space. He gets up and walks out onto the terrace, into the night where he feels at home. He leans over the bannister and looks into the lights and shadows of the city, and on to the almost lightless belt of the slums. He doesn't want to feel what he does. When he drops the cigarette butt and grinds it out with his heel, he senses Raoul's presence, warm and solid, and when he turns, he meets Raoul's green gaze. They are so close, Katze can't move out of his corner without touching Raoul. Katze feels crowded and hot, his throat is tight, the flavour of smoke like tar on his tongue.

Raoul hesitates, then takes a small step back. Behind him glows the softly lit square of the glassdoors. It lines his hair with gold and casts shadows over his face. "I would like to touch your lips," he says.

The distance makes breathing easier. "I don't kiss," Katze says roughly.

There is a small pause, one of the many between them, and then Raoul takes Katze's hand. His grip is firm but not hard. His hair slides over his shoulders as he stoops a little to touch Katze's fingers with his lips, ignoring the clenching fist with the same calm confidence that suffuses everything he does.

"You done yet?" Katze yanks his hand away. "I need to get out. This place is driving me crazy."

xxx

Outside the confines of Raoul's office, Katze's business takes him into the grim streets of the Ceres slums. He makes his round to meet some of his most important and some of his least compliant contacts. He does not need to lock up his sportster because nobody would be mad enough to damage it. Dressed smartly and with his gun in its holster, he visits the bar where he found Kiri. Watched warily by a pair of bulky minders, he goes to talk to the manager in his back office. They settle over drinks to go through the club's two sets of business accounts that are kept in separate old-fashioned ledger books. The manager has whiskey. Katze brought his own flask of coffee. Without waiting for the manager to sit down, Katze takes his seat and gestures at the visitor's chair opposite. From his place, he can keep an eye on the man and the bouncers backing him.

Katze carefully views the official version and the true records of business transactions carried out since his last call. Assets - both live and material - and investments, expenditure and write-offs. He is precise and thorough and works in silence. The manager, a broad, heavy-set man with a pocky face and bald head, starts sweating. Katze lights a cigarette and puts the box on the table. He flicks it across lightly with his black-gloved fingers, without looking up from the fat book before him.

"Losses," he notes, resting his fingertips on a line of figures. "Quite sudden."

The bouncers exchange edgy glances. Katze casually touches the bulge of the gun under his coat. Before starting his visits, he goes through a routine of cleaning and oiling the weapon, loads it, screws the silencer on. The security catch is off and he has chambered a round. He is ready. Leaning back comfortably, he seeks the manager's gaze. The man pulls out a handkerchief and wipes his bald skull, his expression sulky and challenging. Sweat is beading on his stubbled upper lip. He reaches for the box of fags and flips it open. For a few seconds, he stares blankly at the single white cigarette and two Black Moon that poke out.

"It's that little shite," he grunts at last. "The kid you dumped on me, and his pimp." He takes the white cigarette. Katze offers light and looks at him past the steady little flame. For a moment, the man stares back, before breaking away. His hand is unsteady when he leans forward to light the fag. He takes a lung-deep pull as he slumps back in his seat.

"Where is he?" Katze asks calmly.

"We caught him shooting up on the premises," the manager growls through a puff of smoke. "He's been hanging around trying to hook up with the punters. Hasn't had much luck, there's better meat on offer."

"Sure. I know your taste." Katze gropes in his coat pockets for a fresh packet of cigarettes, finds nicotine gum instead and pops one into his mouth alongside the fag. "And?"

"You know we run a clean ship here. I don't want any trouble with the cops. My guys threw him out, roughed him up a but. He's probably still there, in the backstreet, behind the dumpster. Just where trash belongs."

There is more, things unsaid, vibes, resentment, anger. Stuff that festers if it's left for too long, and creates trouble in the long run. Katze splays his hand on the ledger. "Come on," he says, "spill it. I haven't all day."

"Look, I've had enough. I did you a favour. I offered them work, like you said. The other bloke turned up to do the cleaning, once. Helped himself to stuff from the bar. I had a friendly word, and he quit. In the evening he turned up to smash the place. The guy is trouble, and his pet whore spoils the look of my place. I can't allow that, I have to think of my reputation. I just covered my losses, that's all. I didn't throw him out of the bedsit because you pay the rent, but this deal is finished. I'll even refund the bond for the place if you take them elsewhere."

Katze taps the book. "I see your point," he says, his tone calm and friendly, but his eyes are narrow splinters of gold as he stares at the man. "I understand completely. Here's my view on this." He squashes out his cigarette butt on the corner of the table. "If my share is in the usual account tomorrow morning, I'll forget this little mistake. A slip, an error, it happens. I understand that. I'll also take care of your problem, but you have to try a bit harder, my friend."

"We're even," the manager retorts. "I don't owe you anything. If you have a problem with that, talk to my mates here." He nods at the two heavies that frame the door, blocking the way out.

Katze shakes his head. "Now, I find this frustrating. Haven't we be working well together? Couldn't we trust each other? And now, you're making me cross. You're being shortsighted. You know how this works: you do something stupid, you sort it out. If you don't, it gets worse, and you'll wish you'd never been born. I'd be sorry to put a strain on our friendship, especially now that business is going so well for you."

"That's just bullshit," the man growls. "You got nobody with you. Go talk to the fis-""

A blur of motion, a lound bang, the table flips over, and before anyone can react, the man hits the concrete floor with a hard thump. It knocks his head and pushes the air out of his lungs. The table slams down on him. Katze stomps on the throat of the trapped man and points the gun at his bloodied nose.

"You twat," Katze says, not even out of breath.

One of the minders moves. The gun barks and he's dropping with a heavy thud, clutching at his torn throat. From his gaping mouth pours blood. It pulses in long spurts from his ripped arteries, spraying the floor and Katze's coat.

"No!" the manager croaks. "Wait! No-no-no-no-no!" Unable to move, he stares wild-eyed at the other minder, pleading with him to stay put. The shot man convulses in spreading pool of blood as the garish fountains ebb away with his weakening heartbeat. There is a gargling sound as he struggles to draw air into his flooded lungs, drowning in his own blood.

"Stupid," Katze snaps. "Really, really stupid. I'm disappointed. And now? I have to finish this shitty job."

"No, please, just-"

"Shut up." Katze sighs heavily. "This is bad. A nuisance. I don't like it. You, meathead, lock yourself into the bathroom over there."

Once the door closes behind the minder, Katze quickly jams a chair under the handle.

"Get up," he tells the manager who hasn't dared to stir under the table. "Pay up, and we'll be good again. You're lucky that nobody else saw this."

The man scrambles to his feet, scowling, anger and fear still in his blood-spattered face. Shakily he touches his throat, then wipes his broken nose and winces. "Damn you," he wheezes.

Katze pats his shoulder once, gun still in hand. "Just behave."

xxx

The back alley is packed with rubbish, piled high against the walls on each side of the lane, leaving only a narrow passage. Stinking liquid oozes from the garbage, running in a filthy stream in the middle. Rats scurry away as Katze cautiously picks his way. The dumpster, rusty, overflowing and rotting, hasn't been emptied in years. In the greenish sheen of the single emergency light above the club's back door he can see a stray cat slink past, so meagre its bones show through its balding hide. He thinks that the cat has no chance against the army of fat rats. He can feel them close, watching with countless eyes.

"I'm gonna steal your food," he mutters, "damn well I will. I'm bigger than you. I hunt, I scavenge, and I know your dirty little secrets..."

He nearly steps on Kiri, huddled in a bloodied, naked heap against the dumpster. His head is lolling, his knees up, his arms limp by his sides. Katze checks his pulse. It is still there but weak and thready. "Idiot," Katze growls. He throws his coat over Kiri and hauls him up.

xxx

He dumps Kiri, coat and all and still out of it, in the shower and turns on the water. He undresses and soaps himself down to wash off the reek of the street, then he rinses blood and filth off Kiri's lifeless form. Katze leaves him there while he goes to shave his barely-there beard-down, careful not to nick the scar. Then he wraps a towel around his waist and drags Kiri up, shaking him. "Hey, dopehead."

Kiri moans, then doubles over and throws up.

"Dammit," Katze bursts out, "why the hell do I bother?" He takes Kiri into the garage. The cage with the few scraps that belong to Kiri is still there. Pieces of wire, a few pictures cut from magazines, a melted and blackened shard of green glass, a ratty white feather. Toys. Katze hasn't touched them once, and a fine layer of dust covers them.

He drops Kiri onto the old mattress and pulls a blanket over him, then crouches to listen and watch for a few moments, taking stock. Kiri looks wasted and starved, his skin flabby over his narrow, angular frame. He is shaking, his skin ashen and sticky with cold sweat, his breathing shallow. His eyes lie deeply in dark, hollow sockets. Katze lifts one of his eyelids. The iris is a thin brown ring around the pupil. Kiri's nose is broken and barely healed, his lip split, his body covered in bruises and the scars of injections, old and new. Katze rocks back on his heels and rises. He nudges Kiri's ribs. Kiri tenses and whines.

Katze goes to bed, locking the door behind him. _No point trying to talk now. We'll try tomorrow if you make it through the night. _

xxx

He sleeps soon but lightly, and wakes from scraping sounds. They haven't crept out of a nightmare but come from his door. He pulls on his jeans, lights a fag and takes his gun before opening. Kiri lies on his stomach on the floor. He clasps Katze's bare ankle.

"Please," he sobs, "please..."

Katze shakes him off. It's easy, there's no strength in Kiri's grip. "Please what? Please fuck you? Please hit you? You're an asshole."

Kiri stares up at him, but he is shaking so badly, he can't focus, his gaze slipping, his expression one of confused stupor and desperation. "Need some stuff..."

Katze is ready for this. "Go back downstairs. And don't piss or puke on my car or I'll kick your guts out." He watches as Kiri drags himself up slowly. He pushes him and follows him as he stumbles back into the garage. Kiri's knees buckle a few times, but Katze doesn't offer help. By the cage, Kiri grabs the bars and bends forward. Katze shoves him, and he falls to the floor where he curls up on his side, wrapping his arms around his knees.

"You think I'd touch you?" Katze spits out, the glob landing by Kiri's nose. "I don't wanna catch something nasty. In the morning I'll have a chat with Guy, and then I'll take you back there."

"No!" Kiri's eyes fly open, unseeing but wild, and a fresh tremor wracks him. "Please, no!"

Katze regards him in silence.

"Please let me stay," Kiri begs, tears starting to fall from his eyes in slow, fat drops.

"I don't need a junkwhore."

"Please..."

"Did he do this to you? Or did you fuck up?"

"Please, please... I need..."

Katze takes a deep drag from his smoke. "Sure. Here's the deal." He opens his hand. On his palm lie a small paper sachet and a key. "If you clean up, you can stay until you're okay and then you go back to him. I'll sort him out. If you don't sober up, I'll take you back straightaway, and I don't care what he's doing with you."

"I can't... it hurts... I can't..."

Katze puts the sachet and the key into Kiri's hand and closes his fingers around them. "There's enough for a good shot. But if you wanna come clean, lock yourself in. You know the drill."

xxx


	15. Chapter 15

The morning is grey and hostile. Katze has coffee and another fag before getting dressed. He wonders whether there will be a message from Raoul, but the computer screen is dark.

_Iason wouldn't have missed the chance, just for the fun of making me jump. _

The thought is unwelcome, and he bats it down. He checks whether the club money has arrived in the agreed account and smiles thinly when he sees that the credited amount includes interest at the going rate. He will acknowledge the restored business relations later, after letting the manager sizzle for a while, but he does send instructions to have him observed a bit closer than usual.

_It's all about control, right? That's how we get our kicks._

Leaning back, Katze stares at the screen through a veil of smoke, but he doesn't see the messages and documents because his thoughts are already elsewhere.

xxx

Kiri crouches in a corner of the cage. He is trembling, drifting in and out of consciousness. The cage is locked, the key lies outside, by the wheel of Katze's sportster. The white powder is scattered over the concrete floor. Katze can see tracks made by dampened fingers, desperate to scoop up some of the stuff closer to the cage, but most of the powder is out of Kiri's reach. Katze gives him a plastic bottle with thickly sugared water and a roll of toilet paper. "I'll be back later. Try to use the pan if you need a dump."

xxx

When Katze steps into the office suite, Raoul rises immediately from his place behind the glass desk. He has been working, Katze can tell from the piles of discs and papers. Raoul's face is cool, his gaze clear as he regards the redhead.

_Yes, it's all about control. And nothing changes._

"I expected you back two days ago," Raoul says evenly.

"I got held up." Katze pulls out his chair and flicks on his laptop. He shrugs off his coat and catches Raoul's glance at the gun in its shoulderholster. Then he notices the mug of coffee on his place. The coffee is black, strong and hot. Katze nods at the back of the surveillance screen in front of Raoul. "Still keeping track, huh?"

"I placed the order when the signal from your badge was transmitted and I saw you coming into the compound."

"Sure." Katze slumps into his chair and starts scanning the messages that have arrived in his absence.

Raoul's gloved fingers clasp the back of the chair. "I was... concerned," he says calmly.

Katze lights up, the heat of the flame flickering over his face and searing a few hairs that fall over it. The computer screen is a pale blue blur, the messages routine. He takes deep pulls from his fag, veiling his face in smoke. "I had stuff to do. I have a life, you know. Business that's nothing to do with you here."

"We are not finished," Raoul returns. The duplicity of his answer snags Katze, and he glances up. Raoul's gaze is steady, unsettling him.

"That's for me to say," Katze retorts, ready for a fight. He wants to make it happen. He's been waiting for it, and he starts fraying, Raoul's patience straining his own.

Raoul sits down, a silent refusal to pick up the gauntlet, and everything slides back into place with ease. The way things have been in those last weeks, merging into months of pauses and shared nights.

"I appreciate your company," Raoul says into the silence. "You know that, don't you?"

"How would I know," Katze retorts, "what's going on in your head?"

xxx

They sleep with each other that night, and when they are in the middle of it, joined intimately, Raoul props himself up on his arms and looks down at Katze's strained face, his closed eyes and open mouth, his flushed neck and chest, the beads of sweat on his forehead and the hollow of his throat, his heaving chest. "Why won't you let go?"

"For me to know," Katze gasps.

Raoul sinks onto his elbows, weighing Katze down. His voice is quiet, close to Katze's ear. "Are you enjoying this? Torturing yourself? I understand some people have certain interests."

Katze says nothing, but every fibre in his body is tense, and in his belly coils heat, white-hot, ready to explode. He bites his lip until it bleeds, and a lashing of pain provides the distraction he desperately wants.

"I do not wish to be like Iason," Raoul murmurs. A shade of unhappiness colours his tone, but it's too faint for Katze to be certain.

"Could have fooled me," he grunts. "Can you hurry up now?"

There is a moment of stillness, filled with tension and longing. And then, instead of finishing, Raoul gets up to shower. Katze angles his arm over his eyes. The heat subsides, leaving him hollow. He can hear Raoul move around in the bathroom, then the hiss of the glass doors to the terrace.

Katze gets dressed and joins him to watch the first sliver of dawn rise above the skyline of the city. "What do you really want?"

Raoul turns his beautiful head to look at him. "Your trust," he says quietly. "I would like you to trust me."

_Why do we always want what we can't get?_

Katze laughs. "Wow. And what would you do with it?" _And what would it do for you? Give you a trip? The ultimate triumph, something not even Iason could have?_ He doesn't really expect an answer, but Raoul's calm gaze makes him angry, and he shakes his head. "Whatever. Look, if we're done for tonight, I gotta go and check on a few things."

Raoul leans in, the fresh morning breeze making a few strands of his hair drift across Katze's face as Raoul's lips brush the pulse at his neck. "I am not holding you."

xxx

The bedsit is in a crumbling row of two storey houses that once had shops on the ground floor and flats above. Now the entire street is boarded up, covered in obscene graffitis, gangland marks and filth. Rubbish has gathered on the pavement and clogs the gutter. Rats are here, too, tough and furtive, one of the tribes that rule the slums. Rubbish grinds under the tyres of Katze's car as he slowly pulls up before one of the houses. The tyres are reinforced so they don't get cut or punctured easily, a lesson he's learned from the police squadcars that patrol the area at long intervals. Katze lights a fresh cigarette before getting out. A scrawny dog limps off a few steps, dragging a torn paperbag along. Without letting go, the dog snarls at him, eyes bulging, muzzle wrinkling to expose long yellow teeth. Katze kicks a broken bottle at the animal. An angry squeal, a jump, another growl, much louder this time, thick with fear and aggression. The wiry fur at the dog's neck bristles.

"Grrr," Katze says, baring his teeth. He picks up a stone and throws it. The dog jumps, pulls its tail between its legs, and lurches off to hide without another sound.

The entrance door is hanging off its hinges. The hallway is dark and stinks of puke and piss. The swath of grey light that comes from the street is enough for Katze to find his way up the stairs. He sidesteps a heap of empty bottles and cans that spill across the landing, and pushes at the battered metal door to the flat. It creaks and gives. For a moment, he puts his gloved hand over his nose and mouth as he listens into the stale darkness, then he takes his gun and steps in.

A couple of boards are torn from the broken windows and allow shafts of light to seep in. The flat - a large room with two doors leading to what had been a kitchen and a bathroom - is as filthy as the rest of the house, the floor strewn with paper, bottles, cans, a few used syringes and a ratty blanket. In a corner a pile of cardboard boxes and newspapers. The toilet bowl is cracked and blocked, the reek of shit filling the place. An old couch, pushed up against one wall, is the only piece of furniture. The man stretched out on it stirs when Katze pokes at him with the silencer.

"What's up?" the man slurs, dragging open his eyes. They are sleep-caked, bleary and baggy,

"Hello, Guy. I see you're doing well," Katze says, taking a step back. He tilts his head. "Feels good to have another chance, doesn't it? Giving it a go, making the best of it. How's your shoulder? Any phantom pains?"

Guy drags himself up. His hair is matted and greasy, his face pasty and unshaven. He is wearing a long-sleeved, unbuttoned shirt and jeans that gape open at the crotch. His underpants look unclean. Katze can smell poverty and fear. Guy's gaze begins to focus. It radiates envy, jealousy, hatred. "Fuck off," he grates.

"Soon." Katze nods at the boxes. "He sleeps there? Kiri?"

"The little shite's run."

"Kiri. His name's Kiri. Almost like Riki, isn't it? I bet you miss Riki."

"Not anymore. He got what he wanted."

Katze studies Guy, but there is nothing in that flat gaze, no stirring of remorse, no pain. "Perhaps. I know where Kiri is."

"Tell him to get his ass over here."

"I did. He doesn't like the idea."

Guy snorts. "He'll come round. He'll crawl back, he always does."

"You left a bad impression at the club."

"It was a shitty job."

"For a man with one arm and a record? What's your choice? Whatever. If you clean up and treat Kiri better, I'll send him back here."

"He's useless. He doesn't know anything. He can't even get anyone to screw him. And you can't make me do anything."

"You're wearing my tag."

Guy lazily raises his arm. The sleeve slides back, baring the tracer cuff with its slowly blinking light. "I don't care. Go on, jolt me. It won't make a fucking difference."

Katze lets the sudden stillness hang. Guy lets his arm drop. He scrapes with his foot through the rubbish, picks up a half-empty bottle of booze, and lifts it in a mock salute. Katze watches him take a few deep gulps of the sharp stuff and sag back.

"Get lost," Guy says, closing his eyes, and suddenly all aggression has fallen away. He looks beat and tired beyond words.

"Sure," Katze says, "I'm wasting my time here."

"You bet..."

"I'm stopping the rent."

"I don't think so."

"Really?"

"You do it for Riki. No, for that bastard he fucked. Because dragging me out of Dana Bahn got them killed. You rub me out, they died for nothing."

For someone drunk and mad, Katze thinks, Guy's words are too clear, the logic so hard it cuts like steel. Guy drags his swollen eyelids open to stare at Katze, and for a moment, they are in balance. Until a lopsided smirk pulls Guy's mouth wide, showing rotting teeth, and an almost soundless chuckle comes from his throat.

Katze lights a fresh cigarette against the stink of loneliness and despair. He pulls the palm-sized controller for the tracer from his coat pocket and tosses it at Guy. It drops into his lap. "Here. You're a free man. Pay your own way."

xxx

To Katze, the darkness of his own place doesn't feel the same anymore. He is a stranger coming home but the journey is endless, and he isn't sure he'll arrive. He sees to Kiri and then locks himself in. He undresses, slowly sliding his hands over his body. He leans his forehead against the flecked mirror in the bathroom and closes his eyes when he arrives at his crotch. He bites his lip as he maps out the sensitive nub of flesh, the knotty scars and the tender area of skin between his groin and navel.

_I wasn't even worth a doctor. A dirty backstreet cutter in Ceres, just enough painkillers to make it bearable, a few rough stitches, as if it was part of a game. _He tries to swallow the bitterness that clogs his throat, but it shoots into his eyes instead, making them water. _Iason... I wonder whether you enjoyed it... but you didn't look happy either._

His touch becomes more intimate, more urgent as heat begins to knot in his belly, yet the blast of mindless heat he hungers for doesn't happen. He teeters on the edge, frustrated to tears and angry enough to start scouring his flesh. Drops of blood begin to ooze from the gashes his nails make, and it is as always - relief blooming from deep within with the rising tide of pain. _It doesn't hurt with him... Raoul... why?_

He groans and opens his eyes, staring at them in the mirror. "The cat won't change it's stripes," he murmurs to the golden reflection. "You know what you need, so get it." He pushes himself away and lurches into the bedroom. From his jeans he pulls the black leather belt and wraps the end with the clasp around his knuckles. He kneels on the floor, his brow against the edge of the mattress, one hand between his legs.

Crack. A thick red weal swells where the belt has smacked down on the length of Katze's back. He gasps, pauses to gather himself. Swinging the belt high again, he gives himself a few more quick, hard lashes, before he clutches the mattress with teeth and nails. He howls, the sound muffled to a suffocated moan by the bedding.

Release won't come this time. Only pain, unshielded by lust, sears through him.


	16. Chapter 16

He feeds Kiri who huddles sullen and trembling in a corner of his cage, the blanket tight around his shoulders. Katze gives him water and bread soaked in syrup. He watches as Kiri reaches out to take the bowl, his fingernails chewed down to the quick, his arms covered in sores and inflamed scratches. He looks miserable but when Katze rises to his feet, Kiri glances up. His eyes are clear and endlessly tired, his gaze strikingly similar to Guy's. He still manages a small smile. It has a bitter edge.

"I'm not going back," he says. "I'm never going back there."

"I can't keep you."

"I'm not going back."

"Don't you get it? I have no... use for you."

"I'll do anything. I'm not going back."

"I don't want your contract. You can have it. Get a life."

"I haven't got a life. I can't do it. I can't remember anything."

"I have no time for this shit." Katze climbs into his car. Through the windscreen he can see Kiri crawl around to gather his belongings and stash them on the side of the cage where he's made an untidy nest to sleep in. He lies down and closes his eyes. And when Katze puts in the reverse gear to manoeuvre the car out of the garage, he catches a glimpse of the white feather in Kiri's fist.

xxx

The suite lies still and empty when he arrives. Raoul's computer hums but the screensaver is on, and his papers are stacked neatly on the glassdesk. A half-empty bottle of red wine, two glasses, one of them used, and a new packet of cigarettes, Katze's brand, sit by his laptop. Katze drags off his coat and tosses it over the back of his chair. The bloodstains have not washed out but he doesn't care. It's his working gear. It will look a lot worse before he gets a new one.

He opens the packet, pours wine into both glasses and takes one to the panorama window. He looks through his reflection at the city beneath, millions of lights marking the star of avenues that are the main vessels of dreams and reality here, an endless stream of life and death.

He smokes a few fags and drinks most of the wine before he steps into the bedroom. It is dark apart from a single point of light above the bed, like a star in a dead sky. He tilts back his head to see better. It is too late to react when he feels strong fingers close around his throat. It reminds him of other things, and a shudder runs through him. Memories, harsh and black, swamp his mind, and he closes his eyes. Trying to fight down the tide of darkness, he swallows, and suddenly he realises that the grip is gentle. Containing, not holding. It makes things worse. Katze is lost, his defences useless because they aren't made for this, a caress.

"Where have you been?" Raoul's voice is quiet, his body firm against Katze's back.

"Busy," Katze says hoarsely.

Raoul's hands slide down Katze's arms and clasp his wrists, his thumbs on Katze's pulse. "You smell of blood."

Katze stands rigid, every fibre in his body strumming with tension. Raoul's hands push under Katze's tee, brush over his stomach, to his chest and shoulders. He starts mauling the bunched muscles until Katze can either accept the pain or relax. He sags. Without a word, he unbuttons his jeans and stoops to shove them down his legs and kick them off. He goes to lie down, on his stomach, his hands linked under his face.

Raoul settles next to him and slowly strokes Katze's back through the tee-shirt. "I would like to see you."

Without a word, Katze rolls over. Raoul bends to kiss where Katze feels ugly. Katze lies still, staring at the lone point of light in the darkness, and every thought ebbs away from him until his mind is empty and silent. He feels his body as if it was a strange thing, responding to new touches in unexpected ways. Something inside him melts. Everything becomes easy.

When Raoul moves up again, Katze closes his eyes and presses his lips to Raoul's skin, to his shoulder because it is closest. He tastes nothing. It surprises him, this odd purity, the smoothness, the unhurried warmth, and how Raoul makes their bodies fit together with neither of them atop. How Raoul almost cradles him in this strange, sweetly twisted embrace and how Katze can turn his back to him without breaking away. When Raoul strokes Katze's scarred groin, his fingers are firm and knowing, and when release washes over the redhead, it comes as a shock. He gropes for Raoul's hand, tries to pry it off, but it's a half-hearted attempt, and Raoul stays, inside Katze and around him. Katze can feel him tense and tremble, he hears the small sound that breaks from Raoul's throat, and the quiet gasp of the first breath after it's over. For a few heartbeats they lie still, wrapped around each other, until Katze tries to get up.

"Don't play hard to get now," Raoul says quietly. "It was difficult enough."

"You got there," Katze murmurs, the warm tide ebbing away fast. "You lot, you always do."

"Like you?"

Katze makes no reply. The darkness is filled with their breathing. Katze waits for Raoul to go and wash. Raoul stirs, his hair slides over Katze's cheek, and the redhead feels lips touching his ear. "Salty," Raoul he says, "and bitter."

"I need a shower," Katze mutters.

Raoul traces his scar. "It suits you."

"What are you on about?"

"Imperfection," Raoul replies gently. "Iason was right. It is your flaws that make you beautiful."

xxx

Katze wakes at first light. He blinks up at the mirrored ceiling. Raoul sleeps on his stomach, his hair a tangled mess. His hair, so impossibly long for a man, the beacon setting him, elite, apart from others. It is also different from Iason's, Katze thinks, its colour warmer. Altogether, an undercurrent of warmth radiates through the frosty shell of decorum and self-possession that Raoul wears. It is unlike Iason's fire and ice, and it reminds Katze of spring. He bats the thought down. Numb and empty, he dresses in the bathroom and leaves before Raoul wakes.

xxx

Kiri has scratched his arms raw. They are crusted with blood and dirt. He crouches in a corner of his cage, the blanket bunched in his fists. He is still in pain, his gaze vague but he tries to keep it focused. "I am not going back," is the first thing he throws at Katze.

"Eat," Katze says, holding out an energy bar and a plastic bottle with water.

"I can work."

"Kiri."

"I'll clean up."

"Kiri, shut up."

Kiri gives Katze a sullen glare. "I know you don't want me. I could have carried on at that place... that club..." He frowns, then rests his head on his folded arms. "I can't remember," he mutters. "It was a club, right?"

"Never mind." Katze gets up. "I got you some stuff for the cold turkey. It'll make you feel better without the shitty rest." He pulls a small cardboard box from his coat pocket. In the box are a few large ampoules. He breaks the one from its plastic form and gives it to Kiri along with a syringe and needle. "You know the drill."

xxx

Raoul calls in the evening to ask, quite formally, for a meeting. Katze tries not to think about it as he feeds Kiri, takes the used syringe and needle away and gives him a new, clean blanket from the bed upstairs. He lays a small stack of fresh clothes where Kiri can reach them through the bars, along with a canister of water and a rag for washing.

Kiri sits in the corner farthest from Katze, hugging his knees and watching glumly. "I'm not going back to him," he repeats, a stubborn twang to his voice. A threat, helpless and thick with desperation, something he'll turn on himself rather than Katze.

"You'll do as you're told," Katze says, stepping back and looking down at him. "And I'm telling you I don't need a junkie in my basement."

"I'm cleaning up."

"That's what they all say."

Beyond the drugged fog, Kiri's gaze darkens. "You bought my contract."

"And what? I threw it, down the shithole where it belongs."

Kiri's face turns white. He looks miserable and pasty. "You... you can't do that!"

"Says who?" Katze smirks and lights up. He blows a thick stream of smoke towards Kiri. "You're a loser." He kicks the cage. The bars clang, making Kiri jump. Katze laughs. "See?" Another kick, harder, closer. "Loser. Whore. Dirtbag. Junkie."

Reddening patches begin to bloom on Kiri's hollow cheeks. He starts blinking, his eyes filling up as he bites his lip. His hands clench, the veins dark lines on his ashen skin.

"Go on," Katze goads, "cry already. It's all you can do. Grovel and blubber." He spits out, a fat glob landing inside the cage. "C'mon, beg. Make me hit you."

Kiri stays silent. The tears don't fall. Katze flicks ash onto the floor. It settles like snow. He watches Kiri's eyes flick down and an expression of hunger distort his face as he stares at the white powder.

Kiri's knuckles whiten as he links his fingers. "I'm not going back," he murmurs, his voice hoarse and brittle. "I don't care what you do."

Katze stares at him. "Wrong answer. You don't get it, do you?"

"I don't understand it."

"Because you're a dopehead. I'm wasting my time."

"You want to be like him."

Katze fills his lungs with smoke. _Getting there. _

Kiri tears his gaze away from the ash on the floor and presses his brow against his drawn-up knees. He starts rocking lightly. And when Katze turns to the car, he hears Kiri's faint chant.

"...not going back..."

xxx

Raoul stands on the terrace when Katze arrives but turns to him immediately. There is an urgency in this single motion that doesn't suit Raoul and takes Katze aback.

"I have difficult news," Raoul says.

Katze sits on the bannister and takes in the view that never grows old for him - the glittering lights, cut by slices of darkness and turned into stardust by gleaming facades.

The scent of Raoul's aftershave is faint but unmistakable. Katze lights a cigarette and takes a deep pull. "Go on. You're having trouble? Big momma giving you shit?"

Raoul steps closer. "I have been... asked to cancel your profile and revoke all your access permits."

Katze looks up at him. "My tag worked when I came in tonight."

A light breeze stirs Raoul's hair and blows a fine strand across his face. Katze wants to brush it away. He buries his hand in his pocket.

Raoul turns away, his profile sharp and clear against the light that flows through the glassdoors. "I'm bound by laws, just like you. I have terminated your profile."

_I had no choice,_ Iason's words echo in Katze's mind, and he feels a chill sink into his bones. "Then how... You made me your-"

"I have chosen another option," Raoul cuts in. He grips the bannister with both hands. "I have endorsed a citizenship application for you."

"I didn't-"

"I know." Raoul glances at him. "However, should you accept this, you will have to choose where you want to live."

There is a long silence. It squats between them and gets thick and heavy, until Katze drops his spent cigarette into the night. It drags a trail of sparks, like a shooting star, and vanishes. "I can't run my business from here," he says bluntly.

"It worked fine during the last few months," Raoul says, without missing a beat.

Katze smiles thinly. "How long did you rehearse this?"

"For some time now," Raoul returns quietly.

"Whatever." Katze shifts uncomfortably, not sure how to respond, and having a hard time keeping what he feels locked away where he can't see it. "Look, here's the thing. I've trimmed back my business deals but things are slipping. I can't afford that. It's use it or lose it. I've worked too hard for it to let it go down the pan now."

"I am not stopping you."

Irritated, Katze glares at him. "Then what? You want me to like this, do you?"

"Is that so bad?"

"I'm not going to."

"I have tried. I am trying."

"What?"

"To win your... affection."

Katze huffs. "Man, Raoul. People hit it off, or they don't."

"Can you not consider any other options?" For the first time since they have settled with each other, there is an edge to Raoul's cool, deep voice. Katze is not sure whether it is annoyance or a crack in Raoul's steely patience.

"I don't do this fancy crap."

"I have lost... given up certain things," Raoul tries again, starting to look somewhat frustrated as he picks his words. Katze wants this talk to end. He pushes away from the bannister. Raoul blocks his way. Katze folds his arms.

"And now you wanna make sure you get paid?"

"I would like to fill the gap."

"I didn't ask for this."

"You chose to come here."

"Really?"

"After the first few times. You decided to work here, for me."

Katze shakes his head. "And what would you tell Jupiter? And your cronies?"

"That you are my partner."

"Business partner."

"Whatever they would prefer to conclude." They look at each other for a few heartbeats, before Raoul says, "I was right."

"How?" Katze murmurs, suddenly tired of fighting.

"You will never be like us. Perhaps that is a good thing."

Katze draws a deep breath. "I can't... Look, I just had kittens, so to speak."

Raoul looks puzzled. "You keep pets?"

Katze smiles weakly. "One. It's a cheap pun, I know. Just something ragged I picked up in the street. It needs some work until I can chuck it out again."

Another silence, then Raoul leans in to kiss the scar. "I believe your business will take you back here sometimes." He moves aside to let Katze pass. "Perhaps you could visit."

Katze steps close. They are almost eye to eye. He touches Raoul's hair, the black leather of his glove a stark contrast to the pale gold. "I will," he says, his voice dark with smoke and things unsaid.

"Because you want to?"

"Because I can."

xxx


	17. Chapter 17

He can't deal with it. The idea of going back to meet Raoul, talk business, pretend... It keeps bobbing around in his head, thudding into his thoughts, distracting and disconcerting him. It makes him drive out to the scorched ruins of Dana Bahn and seek out the spot by the crashed gate, sheets of mangled steel that have all but melted into the crumbling concrete. The sheets and girders are rusting, and puddles of reddish-brown water stand in potholes and cracks on the ground. Katze stands in the soft breeze that barely stirs the stillness of the place.

_A graveyard, _he thinks, _that's what it is, full of ghosts, and they aren't sweet._

He lights a cigarette and buries his hands in his coat pockets. The coat still has faint bloodstfains on it. Katze starts walking, every step grinding down a shred of silence, willing it back into life, into the mild air of spring, even if it still carries the foul reek of ashes and grief. He wanders away from his glaring red car, the colour suddenly making him feel nauseous. He retraces the path Riki would have taken that night he died in Iason's embrace and watches dawn colour the skyline of the city. The lights grow pale, the colours fade until everything melts into a soft grey. Katze pauses, puffs out a stream of smoke and takes the fag out. He tilts back his head and looks up to where a single star gleams in the distant dome of the sky. Far below, the horizon starts glowing pale golden, the shade warm and familiar.

It jolts him. He bends, then crouches, pressing his fist into his stomach. The cigarette trembles, falls from his lips as he curls in on himself, his knees hitting the dirt. He claws at the ground, his nails scraping over broken concrete and stones until he bleeds.

_Iason. You bastard. It should have been me here, with you. But Riki... No. You, you sent me off to save that idiot... No choice, was that it? Liar._

He waits until the wave of blinding pain subsides and lets him breathe again, then he gropes for the smouldering fag and puts it back between his lips. His hands are shaking as he pushes himself up, getting to his feet again.

_There is always choice. And I chose to do as I was told._

xxx

When he gets back to his place, Kiri clings to the bars of his cage. His eyes are glassy, his mouth slack, drooling, his hand outstretched to grope for the box of ampoules Katze has left on an old computer screen nearby. The garage stinks of puke and piss and worse. Katze grabs on to the mix of pity and contempt that wells up and covers his anger, the agony of feeling helpless and discarded.

He takes the lock off and flicks back the latch of the pen. Kiri crawls out, his stare fixed on the ampoules. Katze catches him, holds him while Kiri struggles, tough and weak and starved of everything that makes him more than an animal, until he has no more fight in him and sags. His eyes slide shut, tears running over his face in silence. Katze can feel Kiri's bony chest heave, his heartbeat faint and slow.

"C'mon," he says, "let's eat something." _There's always choice. Do stuff differently. Try something new. Let's try this for a change, we got nothing to lose, right? Nothing at all._

xxx

Kiri spends the night on a pile of bedclothes on the floor at the footend of Katze's bed. He's eaten, been sick, and eaten some more of the canned soup Katze warms and fills into the blue enamel mug for him. A tiny fleck of calm sinks into the angry confusion that churns in Katze's gut, but it's too small to do much good.

He isn't sorry for himself. He blanks out all thoughts of the past, all dreams and ideas, all hope. Most of all, hope. He lives, that is enough. He lives with Kiri, and that's something he can't place, but he accepts it. The way things are, not how they were, not how he would like them to be. He finds this easier. He buries himself in work. Things run smoothly, so he stirs them up, picks fights, razes competitors. He instigates a series of minor turf wars, controlled fires that burn away wild growth and tidy up the fringes of his operations. He finds it entertaining that the police chase after the wrong leads or, if they get it right, soon will be bought or scared off. It's all a game to him, nasty and ruthless, where sleep comes in beds of setting concrete or in the mud of the gutter. He is riding the wave of power, gets drunk and high on it, and for a while, he can breathe more freely again.

Kiri gets better. There is a new determination about him that Katze finds interesting. He goads and prods and to his surprise finds that Kiri won't pick up on his taunts anymore. As if this stubborn, child-like mantra, 'I won't go back', had laid down the law for Kiri and he actually believed it. After a while, Katze gives him the key to the cage back. Then he lets him run small errands again. Unimportant stuff, things that won't matter if they fail, but Kiri seems to have rediscovered his ability to use his brain. Katze uses him to keep the place clean, wash the car, get their meals and the bottles of hard drink Katze uses sometimes to substitute for food. They don't talk much. Katze can't imagine having a conversation with Kiri, and Kiri seems afraid of saying anything at all. Katze finds this just fine. It's enough to have someone around, living, breathing and silent, and when he drops into bed for a few hours before dawn, Katze takes stuff that keeps him under and dreamless until Kiri shakes him awake.

xxx

Raoul sits in the chair that had been Iason's for so long, he still finds it difficult to imagine himself in this place. It's a thought that feels humbling and elating at the same time as he gazes at the shimmering image of Jupiter in the dusky hall. He waits for the voice in his mind, but there is only stillness, so deep it twangs in his ears.

_Everything has to change,_ he thinks, closing his eyes and lowering his head. _Nothing can last forever. Perfection, a glimpse of eternity at best. Preserved in memory, it lives within ourselves, does it not?_

His silent question remains unanswered, and suddenly the hall seems damp and cool, like a tomb. Raoul opens his eyes. The image has not moved. _How can a machine understand the human mind? And what has become of us, keeping to its laws? Beautiful monsters. How small are our lives in the face of eternity. How lonely..._

xxx

The touch on his shoulder is firm. It prods into the forming nightmare, dulled by layers of tablets and drink. Squinting into the darkness, Katze tries to gain his bearings. "Dammit, Kiri" he grunts, "it's too early. You high or what?"

"It took me some time to find you," comes the cool reply.

Katze jolts to awareness in a flash. He jumps up and stares at the man that has taken his seat by the computer. He wears a long dark coat but his height and his hair, tied loosely and tucked into the back of the collar, give him away.

"What are you doing here?" Katze barks out the first thought that springs to his mind. "You crazy?"

Raoul gives him a critical gaze. Katze yanks his jeans up and buckles the belt. From the corner of his eye he catches sight of Kiri just outside the open door, shivering and nervy, his arms wrapped around himself.

Raoul nods at Kiri. "Leave now. Stay out."

Kiri doesn't shift. A shade of surprise passes over Raoul's face. Before he can say anything, Katze turns to Kiri. "Go. You're in the way here."

Kiri melts into the shadows. Katze can't hear his steps on the metal stairs, but it doesn't matter because he is too busy trying to regain his cool. The cigarettes and the bottle are both by the screen. To reach them means to squeeze past Raoul. Katze folds his arms. "Your minders outside?"

"I sent them back."

"Are you mad?"

"I believe... I _trust_ I am safe here."

Katze stares. Raoul's face is a landscape of shadows, his hair overcast with the faint glow of light that comes from outside the window. His scent, clean and sharp, cuts through the pong of stale smoke and alcohol, unwashed bedding and a foul drain.

"Yes," Katze says at last, sitting down on the messy bed, "yes, you are."

Raoul leans forward and hands him the cigarettes. "You might want these." He wears gloves, black and soft. Their smell of animal hide mingles with his scent in ways that Katze finds strange and exciting, full of memories, old and fresh ones.

Katze takes the packet and turns it in his hands. "You shouldn't have come."

"I have an invitation," Raoul replies, so promptly that Katze knows he has come well prepared. "A business dinner and social. Everyone else will have company."

"Their toys," Katze growls.

"I wanted to ask you to come with me."

Katze lights up and inhales deeply, but the smoke doesn't relax him. It just makes him unpleasantly lightheaded. "As what?" he says unwillingly. "Your pet?"

"As my companion," Raoul says, and he starts to look weary, his calm waning. "I thought after all that time you should give me some credit."

Katze tosses the cigarette on the floor and grinds it out with his bare heel. Raoul watches, then seeks his eyes. "Is this what you want? Living like this? Like an animal?"

"I'm nobody's toy."

"You are good at not answering," Raoul notes.

"And you're a judgmental ass." Katze runs his hands through his hair, a quick, nervy gesture. "I don't get it. I don't get you. What is this thing we have, you and I?"

There is a small break, a rift in the darkness, as long as a thought, before Raoul says, "A deep affection. Respect, too, when you're not busy calling me names. It's a long time since I felt anything like this. But Iason is dead. I wish I had been able to understand what he was trying to tell me. I wish I could have been a better friend and not a jealous..." He seems to be searching for the right word, reluctant to use the one that hangs in the silence between them.

"Lover," Katze murmurs, getting up to gather his clothes from the floor. "You know they won't like me there. And I had enough of pretending."

Raoul smiles faintly. His hand settles on Katze's scarred back, strokes his flank in a gesture that is longing and gentle. "I'm not asking you to pretend."

"You saw what happened-"

"I don't rush into things. I am not making promises I can't keep. But I can rankle them a bit, for starters."

"You gonna use me?"

"I am asking you to consider. To live up to your ideas, perhaps. To be my companion, my friend, my... lover. It takes guts, doesn't it?"

Katze straightens, a teeshirt in his hands. Raoul has to look up a little to meet his gaze. "I missed you," he says, his tone calm as always but there is an undercurrent of something else, unsettling and profound. "Perhaps it's a good time for change."

"How about chaos?"

Raoul rises to his feet. They are almost eye to eye, he and Katze. Raoul leans in to touch Katze's scar with his lips. "I am not afraid. Not now, not with you."

A fraction of reluctance, a small hesitation. Katze's heart feels like a jackhammer in his chest, and then he picks up his courage to press back, his arm wrapping around Raoul's waist, feeling his solid form through the rough fabric of his clothes.

"You don't know," Katze murmurs hoarsely, "what you're up against."

Raoul draws back. "I have weighed the odds. I am willing to take this chance."

Katze pulls away, almost embarrassed, and starts getting dressed. "My place is here."

"I want you to come back. Work for me."

"I'll think about it."

"Good." Raoul gives him another smile, shaded and faint in the darkness. "Then... I will have to stay here tonight, won't I? Until you've made up your mind."

"I can drive you back."

"I think I am too tired."

"I have nothing to eat in the house."

Raoul picks up the bottle and glances at the label. "This will do for now."

"The place is filthy."

"I can shower tomorrow."

"Man, Raoul..."

"Anything else you can think of? Or have you run out of excuses? How about your... friend?"

"Kiri. His name's Kiri. He isn't my friend, but I have my obligations." Katze huffs, a sudden lightness seeping into his mind. "Okay. Choices. It's all about choices, right? You can have the bed. I'll take the floor."

Raoul takes off his coat. Underneath he wears black too - jumper, trousers, boots. A holster with a gun. It all piles on the seat of the chair. He drops onto the bed. The mattress creaks. He turns to look at Katze who stands by the desk. "Come now," Raoul says calmly. "You said you didn't want to pretend anymore."

Without a word, Katze crawls in and pulls the cover over both of them. He is still wearing his jeans. For a while, they lie still, warm against each other. "No," Katze says at last, "I don't."

"Then," Raoul murmurs, stroking his arm, "that's good enough for me."

xxx

Later, when they're done, exhausted and sweaty and Raoul turns onto his stomach to start snoring quietly, Katze rolls over him to reach for the cigarettes. Raoul grunts but doesn't shift. Clutching the box, Katze lies still for a while, draped over Raoul's solid frame, soaking up his contented warmth, and a deep calm washes through him. He lights up and drops back on his side of the bed. He lies still, staring at the swirls of smoke that curl lazily towards the peeling paint of the ceiling in the pale dawn. His body is still throbbing from what they've done earlier, aching in a gentle longing. But thinking of Iason dfoesn't pain him anymore.

_Let the past be. We have a life to live. _

And for the first time since he can remember, he feels free.

xxx

**THE END - Red Cat 2.** You might also like to read Red Cat 3 - Tail (and Red Cat 1 - Whiskers if you haven't seen it yet).


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